


My Words Will Be Your Light

by Page161of180



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Hallmark Movie AU, Hooking up, M/M, Pining, Rough First Impressions, also: there's a doggo!, book tour of convenience, but that doesn't mean they don't get to be happy, canon-typical references to Eliot's homophobic upbringing and coping mechanisms, canon-typical references to Quentin's mental-health history, lots of feels, lots of scarves, lots of snow, neither of their lives have been easy, pining while hooking up, pre-story loss of parent, the author's still-continuing obsession, they bond fast!, they just have to learn to let themselves, with love as a story we tell ourselves, writers au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-27
Updated: 2019-12-27
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:14:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 68,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21589798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Page161of180/pseuds/Page161of180
Summary: Quentin Coldwater, high-fantasy wunderkind and eternal sucker for a good hero, only needs one thing: to finish the last book of his trilogy.Eliot Waugh, genre-busting enfant terrible and antihero (at best) of his own not-so-thinly-veiled life story, doesn’t need anything at all.A middle-of-winter book tour reveals, one snow-covered city at a time, that there may be something else they both (desperately) need. If only they can let themselves have their own happy ending.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 223
Kudos: 310
Collections: Magicians Hallmark Holiday Extravaganza





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [ART for My Words Will Be Your Light](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21977677) by [Annis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annis/pseuds/Annis). 



> This story is loosely inspired by the Hallmark Channel original movie, "Winter Love Story," about two writers-- a veteran and a newbie-- who get paired up for a book tour in the middle of winter. As a connoisseur of Hallmark movies, I can tell you that it is a particular delight and I encourage you to check it out if you bear any love at all for a solid romcom. When you do, please try not to think too hard about how I took something so sweet and incandescent and somehow turned it into this stewpot of longing and dysfunction. 
> 
> This story is a lot of things. First and foremost, (*Fleabag voice*) this is a love story. There is a bad first impression, and a slow-then-fast thaw, and pining (so much pining), and a big old happy ending (happy beginning). It is also, unrepentantly, a story about two people with challenges and histories and flaws. It was important to me while writing this story not to flatten out the hard things that have been part of Quentin and Eliot-- like Quentin's depression and history of suicidal urges and attempts, like Eliot's abusive and homophobic upbringing, like Eliot's past issues with substance abuse, like both of their problematic relationship histories, and like their struggles to believe that they are worthy of love. All of those elements come up in the story, in the forms of the characters' train of thoughts on past events and in the (many) discussions they share about who they are and where they've been. If you want more detailed warnings on any of those issues, feel free to drop a line. (Ditto re a background subplot involving Julia, who in this story is running for Congress to unseat her former boss, on whom she blew the whistle for unspecified wrongdoing.) I truly believe that this is a sweet, joyful love story-- but it's not about untouched or flawless people. If you ask me, that's part of what makes it so joyful. Along those lines, I should also say that while this story is entirely an AU, there's a fair amount in here, thematically, that is me unsubtly working through what canon did to these characters. Suffice it to say, this is the story I think these characters (and you, dear reader!) deserve, not what we got. 
> 
> Finally, and most important of all, my hugest, most enormous THANKS are due to the incomparable Annis. In addition to being part of the stellar crew of mods who put together the MHHE (each of whom get their own giant slice of thanks, as well), she agreed to be my art partner for this venture. In addition to providing so much inspiration along the way as I was shaping this story (and trying to convince myself anyone would want to read it), she created absolutely stunning artwork to accompany the piece. I cannot adequately convey how much it means to have a scene I dreamed up in my head turned into something so beautiful. Please check out her art and tell how her phenomenal it is! 
> 
> Title credit: "Winter Song," by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson.
> 
> Revised note (with spoilers) regarding the role of Margo in this story: I chose when writing this story to have Margo exist in the tapestry of the alternate universe in which the story takes place, but not to be personally acquainted with this universe's Eliot or Quentin, or to appear onscreen. Instead, the Margo equivalent (who goes by Janet) is author-Eliot's offscreen literary idol. I also chose to have Eliot name his ever-present yorkie dog 'High King Margo the Destroyer,' after one of that offscreen character's own characters. Each of those avatars-- the author, the author's High King character, and the pup-- reflect traits of canon Margo, but only the dog appears onscreen. After posting, I received a comment, which I have taken to heart, expressing deep hurt that the effect of those decisions is to exclude a major character of color from the onscreen narrative, and to fill the spot that would be hers with a pet. I am both truly sorry and disappointed with myself for not recognizing on my own the full implications of what had been intended as an homage. I add this note to foreground this concern with a story of which I am otherwise proud. I promise greater vigilance in monitoring my own blindspots in the future.

_“There’s little and less I can offer you, sorceress, in your fight against the great Beast. For I have a fumbling wit and a clumsy tongue and everything I have ever touched I leave broken worse than when I found it.”_

_Vix regarded the Fool with cool eyes, watching the spill of his lank hair over his unremarkable face. “Yes, I can see all of that.”_

_As she turned swiftly to leave the tavern and return to the swirling storm outside, however, he grabbed her arm. “I do have one gift that may prove useful to you, though.”_

_The sorceress’s eyes narrowed. “I hunt a monster that thirty-nine before me have tried and failed to kill. I have no need for--”_

_She glanced at his too-long sleeve._

_“--card tricks,” she finished._

_“No-- no, not that,” the Fool stumbled to say, his eyes on the toe of his boot. “It is only-- you seek to defeat a creature that thrives in darkness. I have spent much time in the Darkness myself. They say the only things that light the darkness fully are stories. Well, love and stories.”_

_“And which would you offer?”_

_The Fool’s mouth only pulled into a sad, small curve. “Which would you accept?”_

**\--Quentin M. Coldwater,** ** _The Magician_** (Book 1 of _The Forty Circles Trilogy_ (Chapter 23, “Enter the Fool”)) (Brakebills Press, ed. J. Eliza Chatwin, 2014)

*****

_“You know,” the lighter-haired boy purrs at me, “moving shit with your mind like you do means that you’ve been touched by the devil.”_

_Okay, quick pause. Dearest reader, I get that “the devil” is a pretty Judeo-Christian concept and this is a full-on pantheon-of-elemental-trickster-goddesses kind of setting, but roll with it-- I’m translating for your benefit. He actually says something like ‘touched by the forces of some ooh-scary-weird hybrid-animal-demon thing’ that you wouldn’t have heard of. Does that feel more authentic to you? Great. Moving on._

_The point is that he thinks that I’m bad and wrong because of something that I didn’t choose to have but frankly fucking enjoy all the same. The point is that his dick’s up, regardless. The point is that all the times I thought about this, I was pitifully naive enough to imagine kind eyes and fumbling hands that I could pretend to be more confident than, while relishing every stumble. The point is that the idea that I could deserve something that good or true is the real fantasy-- not the elves that (spoilers) I’m fully going to bone once this story moves out of my father’s bumblefuck village and on the road._

_The point is that I take off my pants for this jackass anyway. Breeches. God(s), whatever._

**\--Eliot Waugh,** **_Dicks, Daddy Issues, Dragons_ **(Chapter 6, “Virginity is a Sexist, Heteronormative Construct, and I Still Cried Afterwards, in an Appropriately Medieval Way”) (Brakebills Press, ed. H. Fogg, 2019)

  
  


*** * * * ***

**One**

*** * * * ***

  
  


**Brakebills Press, Inc. @BrakebillsPress** Dec 15

@HarrietFuzzBeat @SpectacularEliot Don’t mind if we do!

**Harriet Schiff @HarrietFuzzBeat** Dec 14

Stuff your stockings with dicks . . . daddy issues and dragons. Twelve ways that @SpectacularEliot’s debut novel from @BrakebillsPress redefines the fantasy genre. #dicksdaddyissuesdragons

**Eliot Waugh @SpectacularEliot** Dec 15

@HarrietFuzzBeat @OfficialHighKingM says they make ok chew toys too, in case someone on your list is more abt that oral fixation than getting stuffed. 

**Brakebills Press, Inc. @BrakebillsPress** Dec 17

Here’s your chance to meet @SpectacularEliot (and @OfficialHighKingM)! Book tour dates for January just announced! #dicksdaddyissuesdragons

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Dec 17

ok @BrakebillsPress, seriously enough with @SpectacularEliot. REAL FANTASY FANS WANT TO KNOW WHEN @QMColdwater IS GOING TO PUBLISH BOOK 3?!?!?!? #waitingforbook3 #morelikefortyCENTURIEStrilogy

**Quentin M. Coldwater @QMColdwater**

_[No recent activity]_

*****

“Quentin. Quentin, darling?” 

Jane is talking, but Quentin is mostly focused on the stack of books on her desk. Well, the stack of books closest to the phone. Closest to the _speaker_ on the phone. 

It’s a publishing company. There are kind of a fuckton of books around.

The stack that Quentin is looking at are new releases-- they have to be. Nothing else looks that, well, _new_ . Not even new prints of old books look that new. And _new_ , as Jane is constantly reminding Quentin, is what matters. New, and _next_ . What _comes_ next. 

What comes _after_. 

The top book in the stack must be important, Quentin thinks, running as fast as he can from the question of what the hell _does_ come after. Important to Jane, that is. Quentin thinks so because the book beneath it in the stack is about as thick, but is a solid half-inch smaller across, and Jane _always_ stacks her books in pyramids, smallest on top, unless she has a specific reason to deviate. 

Its cover is minimal and abstract-- all contrasting hot colors and bold lines, like the graphic designer was worried that someone somewhere might see it and _not_ immediately make a _Catcher in the Rye_ comparison. It’s playing that whole, _is it fantasy? Or is it some kind of edgy, serious bullshit whose cover you don’t have to be embarrassed of on the subway?_ game. Like it would be too tragically uncool to just give in to the old-timey tarot-card-y illustrations and heavy serif-ed fonts that say, _hey, guess what, yeah, this is a high-minded allegory featuring a whole catalog of complicated gestures that enable its characters to wield fantastical powers within narrowly drawn rules, all in a vaguely sylvan-England setting_. 

Well, it _would_ be tragically uncool, probably. It _is_ , probably. But there’s something to be said for copping to what you really are anyway. There might be, at least. He’s kind of hoping. 

He can just make out the title on the hip new book ( _people don’t say that anymore, do they? Hip? That’s-- Jesus, he’s not even thirty, how is he so fucking bad at this?_ ) from this angle, and-- _ugh_ . God, it has to be Poppy Kline’s, because he can see “dicks” _and_ “dragons.” He _hopes_ it’s Poppy’s. Maybe. He’s not sure what possibility makes him feel worse, actually-- that she has a new book out already (she had just had one out last summer at SDCC, when they-- _nope_ ), or that there’s _two_ of her. At least this latest edition doesn’t seem to have any visible dragon genitalia on the cover.

Oh. 

That’s probably kind of a kink-shamey thing to think, which is shitty of him. It’s not the genitalia specifically or, like, the erotica generally that’s the problem for him, honestly-- although dragons aren’t, like, strictly within his preferences. It’s the way that Poppy and this, _Poppy 2.0_ , or whoever-- they don’t treat the genre seriously. They think that it’s just, like, a get-rich-quick scheme built off of flashing shiny things at a bunch of socially maladjusted people who can’t get friends or dates or laid. Like if you put in enough wish-fulfillment chosen-one bullshit, or pretty elves with big tits, or whatever-- not that, well. Not that that last one’s _not_ in Quentin’s private browser history, honestly. But the _point_ is that fantasy is about more than that. If it wasn’t, then Quentin-- Jesus, he honestly doesn’t even know where the fuck he’d be. It _can_ be about more than that, when it’s good. When it matters to people. It _should_ . It’s supposed to. _He_ ’s supposed to--

There’s a responsibility, is Quentin’s point. This is the genre of Tolkien. Of LeGuin. Of-- well, he’s not going to say Plover, because honestly, fuck Plover for being so fucking disappointing, even if Quentin still owes the Fillory books his life in a lot of ways. The conventions of fantasy aren’t just-- window dressing, okay? They’re an opportunity to explore something real about people and how they work. And, yeah, you know what? Maybe some of the people who like fantasy _are_ sad little fucks like Quentin, so is it so fucking wrong to want to build a place for them that’s _better_ , that has some hope, he wonders, thinking of the string of unanswered emails from Jane’s “consultants” that are sitting in his inbox? Does everything need to be fucking-- cool, or edgy, or like _darkness wins_ to matter?

“--smelling salts be at all useful, do you think? I _was_ trained as an EMT, you may recall.”

Jane’s crisp accent finally breaks into Quentin’s spiral. 

“Ah, there he is,” she clucks, not sounding enormously concerned. She bends one arm at the elbow and props her chin on her knuckles, while Quentin blinks at her and works on getting his bearings back.

“Sorry,” he says, pushing loose strands of limp hair behind his ears. “Were you, um--”

But Jane is just shaking her head at him, the coppery curls around her ageless, heart-shaped face bobbing in time with the motion. “What’s happened to you, my dear?” she asks, in that way she uses on him sometimes, that doesn’t really invite or even accept an answer. “You used to be my little volunteer tomato. Every day you were popping up at my door with new chapters. At one point, I resorted to tipping the doorman downstairs to buzz when he saw you come in, so that I could pretend to be out to lunch by the time you made it up the elevator.”

She hadn’t been very convincing, even with the tipoff, Quentin thinks, remembering the way that Todd-- Jane and Henry Fogg’s shared assistant-- would smile in equal parts determination and pain as he insisted that Jane was at lunch, when Quentin could plainly see her perched on the corner of Henry’s desk, laughing as he tried to mark a draft, through the all-glass walls of their adjacent offices.

“Quentin?” Jane prompts again. 

“Sorry, I dunno,” he says, using the heel of his hand to push more of his hair back off his forehead. “It’s just-- book three, I guess. Finding the ending.”

He drops his eyes to avoid Jane’s, in case his evasion is as obvious to her as it feels to him. But she’s already nodding briskly. 

“You’ve spoken to the consultants I engaged? Talked to them about your ideas?”

Quentin narrowly avoids snorting. “Yeah, uh,” he says instead. “They were . . . helpful,” he finally manages.

Jane raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment further. “Well,” she says after a long beat to let him really _feel_ her skepticism and disapproval-- as if there’s ever a minute of Quentin’s day that he _isn’t_ marinating in _someone_ ’s disapproval, usually his own. “Perhaps a change of scenery will put you back on the path.”

“Jane, no--” Quentin just barely begins to groan, his eyebrows pulling together in preemptive misery, but--

“We’ll try another book tour, I believe,” she’s already saying. She continues speaking over his groan, her eyes narrowing only slightly. “Don’t bother looking so tragic; the higher-ups were quite insistent. If there’s not going to be a new release in 2020, then you’ll have to retain audience interest some other way. There was talk of late-night shows, at one point.”

Quentin shudders at that, and Jane nearly cracks a smile.  
  


“Yes, as you see, I intervened.”

“How long?” Quentin asks, resigning himself to another painful month or months of sleeping in too-anonymous hotel beds instead of his rickety little room in Montclair, and white-knuckling through flights, and scalding his tongue on tasteless Hedgebucks tea, and struggling to come up with a new answer every night to the question of _when will book three be out_?

“One month,” Jane answers. Which, actually-- that isn’t awful, actually. A month could be--

“--for the first one,” she finishes. 

To Quentin’s credit, he does realize he’s being a brat, probably, when he rolls his eyes and lets his head fall back against the chair. “How many--”

“Perhaps a reminder that no part of this can fairly be characterized as optional under the terms of your contract,” Jane interrupts, her light eyebrows high and even. She softens after a moment, and adds, “We’ll start with one. In January-- just for a month. Todd’s already put the itinerary in your calendar. After that, we’ll-- see where we stand, won’t we?”

Quentin blows out a long breath, but he nods. It’s not-- he knows that Jane looks out for him. In her way, at least. And that none of this would even be happening, if he could just actually-- finish book three. 

Or.

Well.

All the same, he can’t help but give one more despairing look to the ceiling. 

“They realize I’m shitty at these things, right?” he asks, mostly at the ceiling but mostly _to_ Jane. “Like, if this is all supposed to be a P.R. move, it’s probably not going to help much.”

Jane sighs, but she’s looking at him in that, _oh, look at the lost little duckling-- so fuzzy, so sad_ way. “You are, truly, one of our better public readers,” she says. “Your enthusiasm is infectious. And you even do the voices.”

Teachers used to say the same thing to Quentin when they called on him to read aloud in class. He did the voices then, too, which didn’t do him any favors with his classmates. He didn’t do it because he was, like, committed to the craft or anything like that. Or because he didn’t give a shit what people thought of him. He actually would have really liked to avoid yet another reason to get called a freak or, like, cross-checked in the hallway with the same general sentiment. It was just the casualty of _having one freaking speed_ , as Julia always said (says). 

“The Q&A part, though,” he says, fidgeting in his chair, leaning forward to put his elbows on his jeans and his chin in his hand. 

“Yes, quite,” Jane agrees. “I had hoped at first that practice would make perfect. But after seeing you fail as miserably on go-round thirty-what-have-you as the first . . .” she says, trailing off. And, okay, Quentin knows he’s like, not charismatic or funny or even, like, just a normal-acting human at those events, probably, but _fail miserably_ is maybe a bit much. He doesn’t mind talking about his books and the characters and the themes and the setting, and the way that magic works in the universe, and-- yeah. All of that. He can do all of that. It’s when people want to hear about _him_ \-- or, _God_ , about what comes _next_ \-- that he-- Yeah. Okay. Maybe fails fucking miserably. 

“ _Regardless_ ,” Jane is saying, shuffling Quentin through his self-hatred cycle with all the bustling efficiency of the boarding school prefect she must have been once upon a time, “we may have hit upon an improvement this time. A new approach.” 

Quentin raises his eyebrows.

“A _partner_ ,” she finally says, clearly excited at her own solution. Quentin can’t quite muster _her_ level of excitement for anything related to another fucking book tour, but--

“It’s a joint tour?” he asks, trying not to get his hopes up. 

She nods, still sparkling a bit around the eyes.

And-- _okay_. Yes. That-- that could definitely work. Combined events with another author mean half the questions for him to answer. Maybe even less than that if it’s someone really popular or long-winded, or if people just realize that they aren’t going to be able to squeeze any blood out of Quentin’s stone and stick to talking to the probably charming, gregarious, functional person instead. 

He’s almost smiling, he can tell-- at one corner of his mouth, anyway. Almost ready to ask _who?_ , when he finally notices it. The way that Jane’s hand has migrated over to rest carefully on the cool-kid, Helvetica-font, dragon-dick, brand-fucking-spanking-new book that she decided to put out of size order on the top of her pile. 

Because it’s _important_.

“No,” he says. 

“He’s quite new, and he’s _very_ good,” Jane continues, as if Quentin didn’t even speak. “One of Henry’s, actually. The higher-ups are expecting great things.”

And-- Jesus. Is she _blushing_?

“Seriously-- the dragon-dick book?!” Quentin sputters.

“Oh, you know it then,” Eliza blinks. “It’s marvelous, isn’t it? A breath of fresh air in this fuddy-duddy old genre.”

Quentin, who he’s pretty much at peace with the level of fuddy in his duddy, has no answer for that, so he tries an alternate approach. “But I mean, do you think our fanbases are a good match? Enough to, like, share a tour?”

Jane appears to consider for a moment, then leans in like she’s sharing a secret, which is how Quentin knows he’s about to be played, because Jane has never volunteered to share a secret in her _life_ . “Truthfully,” she says-- so, _not_ , “we’re hoping that _your_ fanbase will take a liking to him. He has so much promise, but this is his debut. And surely your fans have enough-- _passion_ to share.”

Last Thursday, one of his fans had gone through his trash and pulled out a handwritten grocery list that he knows for a fact was beneath a not insignificant number of used teabags, so _yeah_ , probably. (Whoever they were, Julia told him that when they’d eventually posted a picture of the list on tumblr, they’d blacked out the part that read _lexapro refill_. Which was nice of them, probably.)

“And what’s the real reason?” Quentin asks.

Jane doesn’t bother to play stupid, which is also nice, probably. Instead, she sighs and leans farther back into her swivel chair. “He’s extraordinarily charming,” she admits. “Active on social media. _Cheeky_ on social media.”

“Quentin” has yet to tweet something from the nice account with the verified checkmark that _wasn’t_ scripted by Brakebills’ P.R. team and actually typed and sent by Todd, and they both know it. Quentin doesn’t mean to start getting defensive, but he can feel it happening anyway.

Jane sees it happening, too, and has no time for it. “It wouldn’t hurt you to take a page from his book, as it were,” she says. “The way he writes-- it’s _disarmingly_ open. Painfully honest. I think you’d like it quite a lot if you gave it a chance. You’re the one that’s always so adamant that fantasy is supposed to _mean_ something.”

The “cks” of “dicks” is visible beneath where Jane’s hand still rests on the cover.

“Yeah, I bet,” Quentin grunts, crossing his arms.

“My God, you are a snob--” Jane starts to say.

“I am _not_ a--” Quentin begins to-- yeah, okay, shout. But he stops himself because he recognizes, okay? That anything that a person shouts at their editor that they _aren’t_ , with that little volume control, is probably exactly what they are. 

“I’m _not_ ,” he says more evenly, after a moment, throwing both hands to the sides, then running them both through his hair, when that posture feels too exposed.

Jane just smiles like she’s positioned him exactly where she wants him. Which usually means she has.

“Excellent,” she says, already turning back to her computer, signalling that she’s quite finished with Quentin now, thank you. “You can tell him so yourself. He’s waiting for you downstairs at the Hedgebucks in the lobby. I thought it would be wise for you two to meet in person before your big tour.” 

Quentin can’t decide if he should be surprised or not. He doesn’t get the time to decide before Jane is waving him off with one hand, while putting on a pair of reading glasses with the other. “Chop chop! Off you go.” 

He sighs, but it’s for no one’s benefit but his own. It takes him a minute to gather up his messenger bag and his boxy old peacoat and the blue beanie that Julia knitted for him, and to make sure that his dad’s old driving gloves-- tan with the brown leather patches-- are still in his pockets, before he starts shuffling his way toward the glass door, which is entirely see-through except for the Brakebills Press insignia frosted on just below eye-level. When Quentin’s through to the other side, he finally sees Jane look up at him over the rim of her glasses, but she’s back to her computer screen almost as soon as he notices. 

Todd gives him a printout of the promised itinerary and also tells him “ _Happy_ Christmas,” because he’s both the kind of person that genuinely wants other people to enjoy things, and the kind of person that starts repeating their boss’s ex-pat British-isms even though they’ve personally probably never left the tristate region. Quentin takes the pages with the hand that’s already holding his beanie. His other hand is busy holding the heavy wool coat by the collar, and also being inexorably dragged down by the messenger bag that’s still hooked over his elbow, because he doesn’t want to put it up over his shoulder yet, when he’s just going to have to take it off again to put the coat on. 

Quentin’s still juggling his personal effects, and the now-wrinkled pages from Todd, when the elevator door closes behind him, and he realizes two things. First, that the one piece of information that neither Todd _nor_ Jane gave him is the _name_ of the person he’s on his way to meet-- which would be a problem (because Quentin may not be a natural people-person, but even he realizes that _cheeky dragon-dick guy_ is probably not a workable thing to call another person), if not for the second thing. The second thing is that the guy’s name is, apparently, Eliot Waugh. Quentin knows this second thing because inside the elevator, on the opposite side of the door from the control panel-- which Quentin just barely manages to work, doing some more collateral damage to his print-out itinerary in the process-- is that same shitty magenta-orange-yellow book cover, this time with lots of fake-fawning quotes written up by the Brakebills P.R. team and attributed to the usual suspects, including-- yup, _there_ she is. Poppy Kline. Of fucking course. 

(That was the one line-- the _one_ \-- that he’d been able to draw firmly with Jane: his name doesn’t go on endorsements for other authors, unless he _actually_ agrees that they’re like, _a defining new voice with the propulsive readability of George R.R. Martin_ , or whatever. Eventually she’d just stopped bothering asking him and stuck to using writers who didn’t seem to give as much of a shit. That was around the time she’d started using the word _snob_ , come to think of it.)

Quentin’s saved from further rumination about, like, the line between snobbery and puristry, and how much easier it is to ruminate on petty shit like _that_ than it is to think about the things that he’s _actually_ unhappy about and desperately avoiding, by the elevator dinging and letting him off on the ground floor. He manages to shuffle-drag his shit to the Hedgebucks, which is packed, because why wouldn’t it be. He stands in line for as long as it takes to dubiously order a medium mint tea-- and yeah, he says _medium_ and not _grande_ , because-- because, crap, fine, maybe he really _is_ a snob. 

He’s more than kind of hoping that in the time it takes to make his way to the front of the line and then wait for the harried teal-streaked barista to get to his order, someone in the shoebox-size Hedgebucks will have done something to signal that they’re waiting for Quentin to come join them. But everyone crammed around the four tiny tables and five barstools seems to be already talking to other people or buried in their laptops. Technically, he realizes, there’s no reason that Eliot Waugh-- who is apparently both cheeky-charming and a writer-- couldn’t be either talking to other humans while waiting for Quentin, or, you know, writing. But Quentin’s already thinking about what a relief it would be if Eliot just-- _wasn’t_ here, for Quentin to have to try to make functional-person small-talk with, and how he could tell Jane that it wasn’t even his fault, he just got stood up. By the time the barista is calling out _Mint Majesty for Kentin_ \-- and seriously? _Kentin?_ \-- he’s already got his arms through his jacket and the beanie smushed down over his messy hair and Todd’s poor papers balled up in the outside pocket of the messenger bag.

He knows, even as he glides out the door onto the slush-covered sidewalk, that the sense of relief is going to be short-lived. That as soon as he gets on the A-C-E to Penn Station and then switches over to the Montclair-Boonton line, he’ll remember that he’s not actually running away from his problems by avoiding Eliot Waugh; he’s running away from the thing that’s _distracting_ him from his real problems, the ones that are saved on the laptop he purposely didn’t bring with him today. 

The _momentary_ sense of relief is powerful all the same. 

Or, at least it is until a figure propped against the front wall-window thing of the Hedgebucks, a pace or two down from the door, straightens up and steps into his space.

“Quentin Coldwater?” the figure-- the man-- asks. His mouth curls as he asks it, like the words-- Quentin’s _name_ \-- might taste bad, or might taste intriguing, or might just taste strange. 

Quentin knows because he’s _looking_ at the man’s mouth. 

He should-- not be. He should stop. Looking. That much is-- yeah, that’s obvious to Kentin. _Quentin_. But it’s easier said than done, when the man lifts the cigarette he’s holding between two long fingers-- and, honestly, Quentin has never understood the point of fingerless gloves, especially when it’s this fucking cold out, but he’s not complaining, not right now-- and brings it to his lips for another drag. 

And all Quentin can think is--

_Jesus_. They should have put a headshot on the poster.

The man is smiling-- more like he’s thinking about smiling, really-- as he exhales smoke and steam both into the frigid, gray air. “I’m Eliot,” he finally says, unnecessarily. Because, yeah. Of course, _this_ is Eliot Waugh. Quentin’s luck would allow for nothing less. 

“You’re late,” he adds, when Quentin remains silent. “Henry told me to be here at two.”

“There was-- uh-um, line,” Quentin is saying, ineffectually-- finally registering, as he moves his mouth to speak, that his jaw has apparently been _hanging_ open this whole time, _nice job_ , _Coldwater_ . He clamps it shut, and it’s like the motion jolts something in his head that was short-circuiting, because he can feel his eyes narrowing suddenly, and his head shaking, the general fog of _holy shit_ (of _Eliot_ ) clearing away as he does. 

“Sorry,” he says, and his voice is more present this time, and-- oh yeah, _that’s_ the other thing that Eliot Waugh’s imperious little smile is making him feel-- more than a little annoyed. “I assumed we were meeting indoors? Where it’s above freezing?”

Julia gives him a lot of shit for his whole, _oh my God, Q, you’re_ so pissy _sometimes, just_ say _if you’re mad_ thing. There’s just a taste of that-- and _Christ_ , does Quentin need to shut the whole world of mouth-related metaphors down-- in the twitch of Eliot’s dark eyebrow. But he only makes a little _hmm_ , his lips pressing together tightly enough that they turn nearly white for a moment. 

It can’t even generously be interpreted as an apology, or even, like, a meaningful conversational entry, which makes Quentin briefly wonder if Jane’s definition of _immensely charming_ might be skewed. 

“Can we, uh, go inside _now_ ?” Quentin asks him. And if he still sounds-- yeah, probably pissy-- then, sue him. This is what happens when _Quentin_ has to be the one to move a conversation along. Jesus, this tour is maybe going to be a disaster.

Eliot’s grimace at Quentin’s question comes a little bit closer to feeling like an apology. It also sends one of his artfully tousled curls falling across his forehead. And that description-- that’s not Quentin editorializing, okay? Because this guy is rocking the closest thing to, like, Heathcliff-on-the-moors-energy that Quentin has ever seen in real life.

“Can’t,” Eliot says, breezy as fuck, like it’s totally normal social behavior to just-- decline to go inside when it’s all of twenty degrees out and Quentin doesn’t have gloves on because there’s no way he can balance carrying his to-go cup of shitty tea _and_ putting his gloves on, and there’s no way he’s going to risk spilling the shitty tea on his gloves, because the gloves aren’t _his_ gloves at all, they’re his _father’s_ , and even though Quentin lives in his father’s old house surrounded by his father’s things, he’s still painfully aware of every item of his father’s that he loses or ruins or fucking _breaks_ , because eventually, one day, there’ll be no things left that were his dad’s, because it’s all a one-way ratchet now.

“Right,” he says, instead of any of what he’s thinking.

Eliot’s grimace returns, a little more exaggerated and also somehow a little more honest. “Sorry,” he says, finally, “it’s just-- they won’t let her inside.”

He nods downward, and for half a second, Quentin actually thinks he’s talking about the cigarette still smoldering in his half-gloved hands. But then Quentin finally notices that the retro-looking leather satchel that Eliot is wearing with his black trench coat and long purple scarf isn’t empty or filled with books or whatever. That, in fact, there’s a _dog_ peeking out from under the flap. 

“This is High King Margo the Destroyer,” Eliot clarifies, angling his long, lean body so that the little face peeking out from the side of his bag’s leather flap is facing Quentin dead-on. She’s tiny and pretty much made of long, glossy brown fur, from what Quentin can see-- so much of it that a hank of it is tied on top of her head with what looks like a tiny crown. Also, it might just be the angle that her hair is falling, but she seems to only have one eye.

“Oh, um, hi,” Quentin says. He catches himself in the middle of waving with his free hand, before he realizes that waving is not, like, a standard greeting for dogs. He starts to turn the wave into a pet, but then he considers that not all dogs like being pet, or being pet by strangers. But the second-guessing ends up being for nought, because his hand is close enough that _High King Margo the Destroyer--_ which, seriously, must be, like, a fancy show-dog competition name or something, that would also explain why her hair is brushed better than Quentin’s-- catches his scent and leans farther out of the bag to bop the end of her nose against Quentin’s fingers, giving a sniff as she does. It’s quick, sharp, and followed by an unmistakably unimpressed yap. 

Quentin’s probably been as thoroughly dismissed before, but maybe never by a yorkie. 

“Hush, Bambi,” Eliot scolds, tapping a finger just above her black button nose. 

Quentin’s own nose wrinkles. “I thought you said her name was, uh, High King Margo the, um--”

“The Destroyer,” Eliot finishes. His easy grin goes a little Mona Lisa and faraway when he adds, "She's named for someone very important to me."

Quentin bypasses the obvious question (" _You know many high kings?"_ ), and jumps straight to, "And the, uh, 'Bambi' thing because . . ."

Eliot only hums. “She goes by many names. She’s not beholden to labels.”

“Right. Yeah,” Quentin finds himself saying, because he has no clue what else _to_ say. He glimpses over his shoulder at the artificially bright light of the Hedgebucks and all the people inside who aren’t shivering. 

“Is she, um, a service dog?” Quentin asks after a moment, even though Eliot-- well, not that it’s Quentin’s place to try to judge, but from an outsider’s glance he seems to be, um-- but what does Quentin know? And anyway, emotional support animals are also a thing. God knows Quentin’s therapist has floated the idea enough times, and if Quentin were even marginally more convinced of his ability to sustain another life, he might have gone for it by now. Also, most important of all (well, not really, but the general grayness in the air is working up to general mistiness and then probably to some kind of freezing rain, Quentin can just _feel_ it), the store can’t possibly bar a service animal. And, while Quentin may not be the kick-in-the-door-with-righteous-fury type by nature, it’s not like he hasn’t picked up _anything_ from Julia over the years, and it’s fucking cold enough that he would gladly stand up for Eliot’s rights if it means being _actually_ _inside_.

But despite the growing hope in Quentin’s eyes, Eliot simply shrugs and says, “No.”

Quentin blinks. “So you just-- brought her anyway? To a store that doesn’t allow dogs?”

“Mm hm,” Eliot confirms. He punctuates the statement by tossing the remains of his cigarette _right onto the sidewalk_. 

Quentin’s free ( _cold_ ) hand comes up to pinch the bridge of his nose, and he’s about to make some excuse to get out of here without flipping his shit on Mr. Next-Big-Thing, if only so that he still has some shit left to lose once this godforsaken book tour begins. But he’s interrupted by Eliot, whose brows are furrowing just slightly. 

“Tell you what,” he says, cheery in a way that feels forced. “You’re probably going to the subway, yes? Bambi and I will walk you there. It’s just a book tour, right? What’s there to be said that we can’t get through in a couple of blocks?”

Quentin can recognize that Eliot is probably trying to be polite, or maybe just professional, so he holds back the snort that wants to come out. It’s easier not to think of anything to replace the snort with, so he doesn’t.

“Soo,” Eliot ventures, after they’ve crossed-- in silence-- against the light, “Henry says your books are a big deal. Like, very . . . _Game of Thrones_ -y.” 

Quentin stops. Eliot (and, by default, High King Margo) go another couple steps, before he notices and turns back. 

“You haven’t read them?” Quentin asks without thinking. “My books?” 

Eliot’s mouth immediately curves up into an amused smile, and it makes Quentin want to rewind the past fifteen seconds, because God, he sounds like a dick. He genuinely didn’t mean that to come out, like, as insufferably arrogant as it did. It’s just-- it’s been a long time since he talked to someone in their business that _didn’t_ want to tell him in great detail everything they thought about _Forty Circles_ \-- and how it should end. 

“I didn’t--” Quentin starts, but Eliot cuts Quentin off with an, “Oh, but you totally _did_ ,” his grin going even wider.

“Sorry, stud,” he adds, with a little lilt that almost makes Quentin choke, because it doesn’t sound one-hundred percent like sarcasm. “I promise once there’s an HBO adaptation with plenty of gratuitous full-frontal, I’ll be there for it.”

The idea of the premium-cable version of _Forty Circles_ gets tangled up on a couple spots in Quentin’s brain. The one that sounds an awful lot like Jane, talking about options and pilots and licensing if only Quentin would _write the bloody ending_ , for starters. But also the one that knows that, for all he tries not to, he still sees Alice in his mind, every time he writes about his heroine Vix rolling her eyes at the Fool, or gritting her teeth through his soft-hearted ramblings. He’s not sure he could take the version of _Forty Circles_ that decides to toss the two of them in bed to do soft-core versions of all the things that Quentin and Alice (probably) ( _definitely_ ) won’t ever do again.

“ _Jesus_ ,” he huffs out. And it’s probably the combination of those two spots, both bruise-tender, that’s driving what he says next, but that doesn’t make it okay. “You know, some people in this genre aspire to write about more than just _dicks_.”

It’s the last word, really, and the emphasis that Quentin gives it, that makes it impossible for the bitchy aside to read as anything other than a dig. Eliot registers it. Quentin’s only spent about ten minutes in Eliot’s presence, and he can _see_ that Eliot registers it. It’s clear in the way that, without a single muscle in Eliot’s face so much as twitching, the teasing smile he’d been wearing just a second ago-- because _God_ , he’d been _teasing_ Quentin, he’d been trying to be _nice_ \-- is suddenly a mask with no life behind it.

Quentin doesn’t know how to deal with how uncalled-for a bastard he just was, so he hides behind taking a sip of his tea. He realizes half a second too late why that’s a mistake, at which point the roof of his mouth is already burning, and the rest of the still-scalding liquid in the cup is about to pour down the front of his coat, while he spits and struggles.

He braces for the spill, but it never comes, because Eliot reaches out and plucks the cup easily out of Quentin’s hands.

“You okay?” he asks, as his free hand lands steady and strong on Quentin’s shoulder. The warmth may be gone from his eyes, but at least he’s not prepared to stand by while Quentin gives himself second-degree burns.

“Ugh, their tea is a lawsuit waiting to happen, I swear,” Eliot continues, without waiting for Quentin’s answer. He’s nodding as he talks, like a doctor making a diagnosis. “The hot water tap they use is basically boiling. You should tell them next time to fill it up four-fifths and then top it with the cold. A little pro tip from my barista days.”

“You were a barista?” 

Eliot shrugs as he hands Quentin back his cup. It feels impossible to imagine him in an apron and a baseball cap, doing the same. 

“Well, I had to live out the struggling writer cliche somehow, didn’t I?” 

And _that_ explanation makes more sense to Quentin than anything else he could have come up with for how exactly someone who probably summers in places that use “summers” as a verb and who carries a probable show dog in his hip pocket, winds up working at a Hedgebucks.

“I’m pretty sure a non-trivial chunk of my book started out on Hedgebucks napkins,” Eliot muses, sounding, for a moment, almost confessional. But then he makes that little waving gesture with his hand that’s already becoming familiar to Quentin, and his expression shutters again. “But whatever. Like you said, it’s mostly just dick jokes, so.”

“Um,” Quentin says, stomach going tight. “I shouldn’t have--”

But Eliot only waves again. “It’s no big deal. You can do the whole smart, impactful _high art_ thing,” he says-- and Quentin tries his hardest not to cringe, because _smart_ and _impactful_ , yeah, that’s just fucking _him_ , isn’t it?-- “and I’ll stick to Fifty Shades of Gray-scaling a bunch of nerds out of their parents’ money.”

Eliot smirks when he drops the line. Which makes sense. Because it’s a fucking funny line. But then, of course it is, Quentin thinks, his stomach going tight again, and not with guilt this time. After all, it must be a real advantage when it comes to making jokes and-- and everything else, probably, when everything’s a joke to you to start with. 

“Right,” Quentin finally says, when he registers that he’s probably been staring in borderline-open disgust for too long. “Sounds-- awesome.” 

Eliot’s eyes-- that sparkle and flatten on command, apparently-- have narrowed again, but thank God, they’ve finally reached the entrance to the subway. Quentin’s so close he can taste it. To getting away from this effortless, gorgeous guy who has no fucking idea how it feels to care _so much_ about things that it makes you awful. 

The freezing rain that Quentin predicted starts up as he ruminates, right on cue. A few icy drops spatter his neck, where the oversized collar of his coat gapes open. It makes him shiver.

“I should--” Quentin says, gesturing to the stairway behind him. He turns to go down, but he’s stopped by Eliot’s hand on his wrist, the same steady hand that had stopped Quentin’s cup from falling. 

Eliot lets those thick-lashed, black-lined eyes rove up and down Quentin quickly, shrewdly. Quentin only has a moment to wonder what measure Eliot’s trying to take and how disappointing the result must be, before Eliot’s hands move up to unwind the long knit scarf from around his own neck and drape it over Quentin’s. He loops it once, twice-- sure and gentle, almost motherly. On Eliot, the tasseled ends of the scarf had trailed nearly to the waist, and Eliot has at least six inches on Quentin. Eliot frowns and loops it once more, tugging on the end to center it when he’s done. By the time he’s finished, he’s standing close enough that Quentin can see the way the rain is starting to make his Byron-esque curls fuzz.

“What-- ?” Quentin begins to ask, his voice rasping in a way that it probably shouldn’t, over someone whose big, unfairly sexy hands might wind scarves and soothe puppies, but are also content to scribble trash down on coffee shop napkins and make fun of the people who cling to it, just because _he_ can’t imagine what it’s like, to feel so goddamn alone that only people that live in a made-up world can reach you.

Eliot blinks. “You looked cold,” he says quietly, like that’s all the explanation that’s needed. 

Then he steps back and straightens to his full height. “We’ll see you in the New Year, I guess,” he says, with a nod toward High King Margo at his hip, his voice unconcerned once more. 

He-- and the dog-- are gone before Quentin can answer. 

The scarf is scratchy and warm. It smells like cigarette smoke and snow and some kind of spicy cologne, Quentin notices, as he walks down the stairway to the station, dazed enough that a woman carrying a hardcover suitcase nearly as tall as her passes him on the way down. 

He’ll take the scarf off later, he tells himself. Once he gets back to his dad’s-- to _his_ house. He’ll take it off and fold it and pack it up to return to Eliot on the tour, like an actual professional. He’ll call Julia, and, if she’s not working on her campaign tonight, she’ll come to Jersey and they’ll order Indian and scroll through Eliot’s twitter feed for proof that he’s as much of an entitled asshole as Quentin thought. And then once Julia leaves, Quentin will sit alone in the empty house and finally open up his laptop and stare at _it_ again, instead of sleeping. The manuscript for book three. Complete, like it has been for months. And he’ll worry then-- probably _panic_ then-- about how much longer he can keep feeding Jane bullshit excuses about writer’s block, and about expectations and consultants and fools and whether they have a future at all. 

For now, though, he tucks himself into a hard plastic seat, pulls out his e-reader, breathes in the smoke and the spice and the winter air, _deep_ , and lets himself gets lost in Fillory again. 


	2. Two

*** * * * ***

**Two**

*** * * * ***

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Jan2

@NightsinAntarctica the actually important thing that REAL fans want to know is WHAT DID HE SAY ABOUT BOOK 3?????? #waitingforbook3 

**Emily Greenstreet-Mayakovsky @NightsinAntarctica** Jan 2

ok nyc #fortycirclesfam who’s been to the first night of @QMColdwater’s book tour and has the deets? how adorkable is our precious baby deer tonight??

**Hyman Cool-per @goodoldfashionedastralboy** Jan 2

@NightsinAntarctica i wont go as long as @SpectacularEliot is there. Not into that gay shit lol #fortycirclesfam

Show this thread

**Hyman Cool-per @goodoldfashionedastralboy** Jan 2

Sux bc i wanted 2 ask @QMColdwater when vix and the fool r gonna get 2gether. I so ship that!!!!!! #fortycirclesfam

**Hyman Cool-per @goodoldfashionedastralboy** Jan 2

Or the fool and lady tree #fortycirclesfam

**Just Like A Bad Penny @worldstraveller40** Jan 2

@goodoldfashionedastralboy Dude. Delete your account. 

*****

The good thing, Eliot thinks, about all the decidedly mediocre sex he’s had in his life-- between the many, many incendiary and spine-melting encounters, mind you-- is that he can now keep a smile painted on through anything.

Well, he amends, rubbing the pads of his fingers together and feeling the slight tackiness where earlier in the evening they had sweated into the pages of chapter six ( _ so  _ much neater to think of it that way-- ‘chapter six,’ as opposed to ‘the summer I was sixteen’).  _ Nearly _ anything.

The point being: Eliot needs to draw on every ounce of  _ mm-hm, that feels nice _ in his repertoire right now. Because one chair down from him, at the table set up in the absolutely packed Fifth Avenue Popper & Noble, Quentin Coldwater is floundering-- to put it kindly. And Eliot  _ does  _ want to put things kindly, he is not-that-amazed to find, when it comes to the fired-up little nerd. 

“Uh, yeah, so it’s-- I think the parallels are just like, a huge oversimplification,” Quentin is saying, one hand scratching at the front of his too-long hair as he hunches over the microphone. “I mean yeah, Ember’s described as goatlike and Aslan takes the form of a lion-- which aren’t even that close, honestly, if-- um. Am I-- did that answer your question?” 

Given that the question had been “what advice do you have for aspiring writers?,” Eliot can’t imagine how it could have. But the young lady holding the audience mic-- a cherubic teen with a baby-Megan-Rapinoe undercut-- just nods at Quentin, starry-eyed. The movement makes the leafy headdress she’s wearing bob. Eliot is guessing the look is some kind of light cosplay for Quentin’s books, which-- based on the excerpt Quentin had read (utterly charmingly with voices and so much puppy enthusiasm Eliot had needed to look away), seems to involve a tree goddess of some variety. The tree lady is the fan favorite, apparently, given that leaf motifs outnumber other overt costume elements in the crowd nearly two-to-one, by Eliot’s count. He’s also seen a couple different women with blue lightning crackles painted on their cheeks-- which seems to relate to something shocking that happens to a wizard (ish?) named Vix at the end of book one-- and at least one or two jester hats. 

Speaking of jester hats. Henry’s insufferable assistant Tad has handed the audience mic to a bearded guy in his twenties wearing a straight-from-someone’s-Etsy-shop black t-shirt screen-printed with intricately rendered playing cards circling another of the hats. If Eliot were a betting man, he would place money on there being forty cards in the circle. 

“Hey, hi,” the guy says, a little bit breathless. 

It’s sweet, Eliot thinks, the way that each of Quentin’s questioners has approached the baby-faced, mumble-voiced, five-eight-on-a-good-day writer the way an ancient supplicant might have entered the temple of Zeus. Although, to be fair, the Zeus analogy might not be that far off the mark, given the well-placed lightning bolts that Quentin had hurled with painful accuracy at Eliot during their first meeting outside of Hedgebucks-- and the judgey frowns that he has continued to lob since Eliot showed up tonight, at the kickoff event of their tour, and informed the coordinator that the store’s no-dogs policy was simply going to have to bend before the might of High King Margo, who’s currently in the employee breakroom causing no trouble at all, and probably bringing color to the evening of some fabulously lucky employee who’d otherwise be stuck on the banality of cash-register duty instead of attending her needs. 

Apparently content to leave his wrath for Eliot (which is a trait Eliot doesn’t hate in beautiful boys), Quentin leans into his microphone and says, “Uh, hi,” back, equally nervous. Which is also sweet. 

“So, I hate to be that guy,” the guy at the microphone is saying, making Quentin’s whole body immediately stiffen, like he inadvertently turned one of those lightning bolts on himself. In the back of the room, Quentin’s editor, Jane, raises her eyes heavenward, while Henry, standing next to her, places a consoling hand on her shoulder. 

“But I kind of have to ask,” the guy continues, almost apologetic. “Do you have any idea of when book three might be done?”

Eliot likes to think that his awareness of social cues is-- to put it mildly-- keen, and the slow-motion-trainwreck ramp-up to the question was not exactly subtle. But even  _ he _ is unprepared for the way that a hush settles over the entire room when the guy hands the mic back to Tad and immediately sits down, looking almost ashamed of his role in whatever has transpired. 

Beside Eliot, Quentin is staring into the middle distance, his mouth opening and closing, but with no words coming out-- not even one of his trademark “uh”s or “um”s. The despairing furrow of his thick eyebrows plucks a chord somewhere in Eliot’s chest, the same one that seeing Quentin’s compact little Artful-Dodger frame shiver in the rain had set off.  _ Then _ , Eliot had slaked the odd impulse to  _ protect this one _ by wrapping Little Orphan Annie in his own scarf-- although a candid assessment of Eliot’s Daddy Warbucks act would reveal that the appropriate metaphor is probably more, well,  _ daddy  _ than actual father figure.  _ Now _ , Eliot’s not sure there’s a scarf or a coat or a California King-size blanket large enough to insulate Quentin against whatever storm is twisting around him, even if Eliot knew how to offer it in the middle of a packed house.

After several more torturous seconds of continued silence, Quentin finally brings his hand up to push at his hair again, which is starting to go stringy in front from the number of times he’s resorted to that particular nervous habit tonight. “I, uh. I don’t-- it’s. Definitely, soon,” he finally settles on.

Eliot has, before this moment, perhaps never seen an entire crowd collectively decide to be kind to someone who just fucking  _ needs  _ it. To the contrary, most of his experience with crowds-- congregations, classrooms, the dining room table in Indiana that has permanent nail imprints on the underside from the way Eliot used to grip it to keep from talking back and getting his ass beaten even more thoroughly-- is built on collective decisions to ostracize or worse. But the encouraging nods that almost everyone in the store gives Quentin’s not even partially convincing answer is an act of mercy that makes Eliot feel actually  _ good  _ about people, for a change.

It makes Eliot, for a brief shining moment, want to be a benevolent person himself, too. Which is perhaps what drives him to lean into his own microphone and say, “I think what my illustrious colleague is saying is that genius takes time, yes?”

The tension in the crowd breaks at his words, the nods becoming a little more relaxed, a little less kid-gloves. Even Jane’s shoulders unclench. 

But Quentin’s melted-Hershey-bar eyes shoot over to Eliot with a look so bothered and bitchy that Eliot finds himself torn between the competing parts of himself that want to (a) slide to his knees on the spot, (b) shrivel up and die, and (c) say  _ Jesus Christ, you self-important little prick, I’m being  _ nice  _ to you _ . But Eliot is a consummate performer-- by design and by necessity-- and so he represses all three desires, and leans forward into the microphone again to say, “Do we have any more questions?”

At Eliot’s prompting, Tad-- it might be Todd, actually, but Eliot gives nary a shit-- finally stops gawking and gets back to his job, much to the relief of Henry, who has been signalling at Tad/Todd to do as much for about a minute and a half now. The audience mic goes to a woman who introduces herself as Zelda, whose commitment to an aesthetic-- specifically, Lauren Bacall-but-make-it-schoolmarm-- could be a form of cosplay all its own.

“My question is for Mr. Waugh,” she says in her careful, lilting voice-- which,  _ hello, little plot twist _ . 

Because, here is something true about tonight’s event, and-- Eliot assumes-- about all the nights to come on this book tour: Not a soul is in this place because of  _ him _ . 

This assessment is not, despite his admitted penchant for the stuff, melodrama. It is a reality, and one with which Eliot is at peace. He is, he knows, cut out to be a tragicomic, dissolute antihero at best, perhaps even a campy sidekick. In no events the proper hero of this or any other narrative; he’s probably closer to the villain, in all truth. That state of affairs is evident in the fact that no one has shown up to this event cosplaying Eliot’s own little story-- although, frankly, he’s not sure what cosplay for his book would even entail, other than perhaps a sizable codpiece. It is equally evident in the fact that all of tonight’s questioners have been, to a person, here for Quentin, and not Eliot. Although one dear soul wearing a t-shirt with Quentin’s actual face on the front, bless her, had been kind enough to direct her question about favorite fantasy authors to both of them. Eliot’s answer--  _ whatever part of my subconscious scripted the recurring fantasy where Prince Harry puts me over his knee _ \-- had made Henry sigh, but Jane giggle, although that was probably mostly out of gratitude for Eliot cutting off Quentin’s torturous rambling about the danger of idealizing writers, which-- again, if Eliot were a betting man-- he’d wager has something to do with the number of times Quentin has name-checked the Fillory books tonight, notwithstanding the exposé about the creep who wrote them that came out a few years ago. 

Because he must ( _ because you always have to make a goddamn spectacle of yourself _ , adds a familiar drawl that he  _ hates  _ that he still hears), Eliot plays up the moment. “For  _ mois _ ?” he asks, leaning in. 

The crowd laughs and Zelda smiles somewhat uncomfortably-- she seems like she does most things somewhat uncomfortably. 

“Yes,” she continues. “I found the passage you read from earlier, in which Monster Boy has his first intimate encounter with a village boy who distrusts his telekinetic abilities, to be very moving.”

She talks in long but grammatically complete sentences, so much so that you can practically hear her thinking the punctuation marks, Eliot thinks. It’s an easier thing to focus on than the fact that his palms are sweating again, just like they had been when he’d read the passage in question out loud-- the only indication he’d allowed that he was having anything but a lark, reading this particular moment out loud to a room full of strangers, and one that he was confident that no one in the audience could see. 

“I was wondering if you could speak about what inspired you to write that scene in particular,” Zelda concludes, with a tentative smile that Eliot forces himself to return. 

There are two more-or-less truthful answers he could give to Zelda’s question. The first goes like this:

_ Well, Zelda, thank you for asking. It started out as a lightly fictionalized account of letting Logan Kinear-- a two-bit, rat-tailed little shit who made my life a living hell-- fuck me in my father’s hayloft in Bumfuck, Indiana-- pun very much intended. Yes, that’s right, I  _ am  _ from Indiana, not the Hamptons, as stated on the dust jacket of the book that I really do hope you’ll purchase, so that I don’t have to go back to barista-ing just yet. Given that level of commitment to concealing my true origins, you can understand why I got a teensy bit loaded on Jack-and-coke (not cola) the night before I sent the manuscript off, and turned the whole thing into a half-hearted fantasy mashup, in a desperate bid for emotional distance. Turns out it was revolutionary!  _ [cue audience laughter]

The second, still more truthful version goes like this:

_ Even before I slapped the Dungeons & Dragons filter on there, the fictionalizing was perhaps light-to-moderate, in that the events in question actually took place at an abandoned batting cage after hours. I would never, under any circumstances, have let a boy touch me anywhere in the vicinity of my father’s barn, because to this day I don’t know if my nightmares are exaggerating when they come up with the slideshow of things my father might have done if he had ever been confronted with unambiguous proof while I was living under his roof that I’m not just ‘queer’ in the sense that he meant it-- i.e., a five-year-old boy weak enough to be scared of the dark-- but also in the more conventional sense _ . 

The version he actually gives-- after a strained pause that rivals Quentin’s worst, and an even more strained chuckle-- is, “Ah. Excellent question. To be honest with you, Zelda, I just made it up. Power of imagination, et cetera, et cetera. How about another question for Mr. Coldwater?”

It’s not his proudest moment, especially as Zelda frowns and nods awkwardly before taking her seat. But-- fuck it. It’s not his _ least  _ proud moment, either, as anyone who’s read his book doesn’t know that they know. So Henry’s disappointed-father look in the back of the room can save it for someone who doesn’t already  _ have  _ one of those. 

It doesn’t hurt half as much, anyway, for reasons Eliot’s not willing to probe, as the way that Quentin actually  _ rolls his eyes _ at Eliot, before turning back to his adoring public and ramble-stuttering through the last fifteen minutes of questions. 

When the event finally, blessedly ends, Quentin looks exhausted, and Henry and Jane are reproachful, but at least his Bambi is happy to see him, even though Eliot can tell that there’s judgment radiating from her one big brown eye, too. She allows him the comfort of scratching through her shiny fur on the taxi ride to the airport anyway, and he smiles as always at the silky length of it, compared to the matted little tufts that she’d been left with when he’d first seen her at the shelter. 

Eliot’s other long-haired companion is staring moodily out the opposite window as they make their slow way to JFK for a midnight flight to Portland, Maine, for the start of the out-of-town leg of their tour. Eliot had been dubious, when he’d first seen the tour itinerary, about why it involved so much overnight travel after evening events, and even more dubious of Henry’s explanation that Jane believed packing Quentin onto a plane directly after being confronted by his worshipful fans was the best way to make sure he wouldn’t make a break for it to avoid any further adulation. But given the slump of Quentin’s shoulders and the longing way he eyes the doorhandle every time the car slows down, Eliot can now grudgingly acknowledge Jane’s Machiavellian wisdom. 

For most of the drive out of midtown, Eliot watches the street lights chase each other over the strong line of Quentin’s profile-- which is only partially spoiled by the same ridiculous, obviously homebrew knitted cap he was wearing the day they met. Eliot wonders if a girlfriend made it for him, before reminding himself sternly that that is quite literally not his affair. Margo snuffles in his lap, which Eliot interprets as a  _ he’s not even that cute _ , which-- agree to disagree, mongrel. 

In any event, it’s not really Quentin’s considerable physical charm-- or not  _ just  _ that, anyway-- that has Eliot strongly weighing, as they leave Manhattan, whether to dare attempt conversation again, notwithstanding that all of his previous sociable overtures have been met by confusion and/or contempt. He’s saved further deliberation on the topic when Quentin unexpectedly rolls his head against the seat back-- and  _ Christ _ , Quentin, can no one have taught this too-pure baby bird of a man that one  _ does not make contact  _ with upholstery in a cab?-- until he’s looking right at Eliot. 

It’s a fraught moment-- and not just because their driver chooses that moment to cut off two different cars and then lay on the horn for good measure-- but because Eliot knows himself well enough to know that he likes men that need to be taken care of, and _really_ likes men who don’t like _him_ enough to let him close enough to fuck it all up in the attempt. And _Quentin_ , Eliot would find if he allowed himself to think deeply on the matter-- which he will not-- checks off both of those boxes, and others, besides. Fortunately, Eliot also likes _friends_ \-- of both the four-legged and two-legged varieties-- that need caring for and that accept such care only grudgingly. Everything will be fine if Eliot can just remember to direct any and all of his Quentin-related energies in _that_ direction.

Once their driver has wrapped up his lengthy and impressively inventive string of expletives at the one driver that had the gall to honk back at him, Quentin narrows his eyes and asks, “Is your hero really named  _ Monster Boy _ ?”

To the extent Eliot had expectations for what would come out of Quentin’s mouth, it was not that. But frankly, that was his error, given that books are the only thing that he’s heard Quentin voluntarily string more than two sentences together about in their admittedly short acquaintanceship. It makes the corner of his mouth curl up, for some reason. 

“I think of him as more of an antihero, really,” he answers, aiming for insouciant and pedantic all at once, and-- by his measure-- nailing it.

To his credit (or possibly discredit), he doesn’t actually realize he’s crafted his response to get Quentin to make that annoyed little huff again until after it happens. 

“ _ Protagonist _ , then. Whatever,” Quentin says.

Eliot firmly doubts that Quentin could ever be truly content to “whatever” a question of literary typology, but he doesn’t press the point. Instead, he lets his fingers scratch over High King Margo’s front haunches, as he shrugs. “That’s the only name anyone calls him in the book,” he non-answers.

Quentin is not impressed by the quality of Eliot’s dodge. “Yeah, but what do  _ you  _ think it is? What’s your backstory for him?”

There’s something in the earnest way Quentin asks the question that makes Eliot absolutely certain that there are word files upon word files-- because Quentin is a draft-on-the-computer person if Eliot has ever seen one-- of background information about the Fool and Tree Lady and Vix and probably, like, Townsperson #2 that they encounter one time in Book Two, Chapter 4137, that have never made it into print. Amazingly, Eliot is almost equally certain that he actually wants to read those files-- or at least skim them-- someday.

In the present moment, Eliot finds himself at a crossroads, much as he had been when poor Zelda asked her question earlier. He can give Quentin an honest answer, or he can lie. There shouldn’t be much suspense about what he’ll choose, given that Eliot’s primary skill sets are lying, running away, imbibing (although not as much of that, these days), and having smoking-hot sex with people who think little of him, in roughly that order. But as such a practiced student of lying-- or, as he prefers to think of it, of self-preservation-- Eliot is aware that the kind of lie he told Zelda and the rest of the crowd tonight has a shelf-life. Those flat contradictions will eventually be revealed for what they are, when someone cares enough to do a cursory Google search and pulls up the 2008 yearbook from Pecksville Junior-Senior High School. Eliot has made it  _ easy _ on that future prospective Googler, honestly, given that the one thing he hasn’t changed about himself is his  _ name _ \-- because now that his family has no power left over him, he  _ wants  _ them to have to live with the knowledge of what he is, and to field awkward questions about him around town, the way they never had to field any awkward questions about why his father couldn’t at least wait until the old beat-up Chevy pulled out of the Kroger parking lot before he started hollering about why Eliot had to walk like such a homo.

Those kinds of lies are crude and temporary, is Eliot’s point. The more sophisticated kind of lie, the kind that is his particular specialty, is the kind that involves telling the absolute truth, but saying it like it doesn’t matter. 

That’s the kind of lie that Eliot employs in the back of this taxi, when he meets Quentin’s lovely brown eyes and says, with utter equanimity, “Nigel. Monster Boy’s real name is Nigel.”

“ _ Nigel _ ,” Quentin repeats. “Are you fucking with me?”

“Oh, little Q,” Eliot purrs, the on-the-fly nickname falling off his tongue easily, casually, because once he gets warmed up with this more elegant style of lying, he is  _ spectacular  _ at it. “Believe me. You’d  _ know  _ if I was fucking with you.” 

Quentin snorts, his dark eyebrows rising until they disappear under his chunky wool hat. “ _ Nigel _ ,” he repeats. “Right. I mean, why not?” 

Quiet descends over the car again-- other than the tinny audio from the loop of commercials that plays on the monitor jammed into the back of the front passenger seat. Eliot can’t quite pin the silence as satisfied or disappointed on Quentin’s end, and, typically, isn’t content himself to leave well enough alone.

“Can I ask  _ you _ a question now?” Eliot asks.

Quentin, who has loosened into nearly a sprawl during their brief conversation-- and  _ again _ , Q, do you have no sense of what happens in the back of taxicabs?-- tenses. “Is it, uh-- is it about how I fucking fell apart in front of a room full of people when someone asked me about book three?”

Eliot inclines his head. “I might not have phrased it that way,” he says lightly, but doesn’t otherwise deny that that’s where he was headed. It was, after all, other than Eliot’s own bricked response to Zelda’s question, the obvious lowpoint of the evening. 

“Does that-- happen a lot?” he ventures after another moment of unclassifiable silence.

Quentin snorts again-- but this version is darker and seems to be directed mostly at himself. “Oh, you know. Only every time I have a Q&A. Or an interview. Or, like, meet a fan in line at the bagel place.” 

Eliot wants to frown at Quentin’s palpable anger at himself, but he suspects it might not be appreciated. So instead, he keeps his voice light and asks, “Is the writing-- not going as you’d hoped, then?”

Quentin rolls his head again so that he’s staring up at the nondescript gray ceiling of the cab. “It’s just-- writer’s block, I guess,” he says after a few moments. 

Eliot learns two things from Quentin’s answer. First, that he only seems to know about the first type of lying-- the blatant falsehoods kind-- and doesn’t seem to even be very convincing at delivering  _ that  _ type. Second, though. Second is that Quentin is less committed to the art of withholding the truth than Eliot is, or perhaps just braver, because after another moment, he swings back to look at Eliot again and changes his answer.    
  
“There’s kind of a lot of shit wrapped up in the whole ‘where’s book three?’ thing.  _ My _ shit, I mean. Personal shit,” he admits. “It’s-- it makes it hard for me to-- talk about.” 

Eliot nods without planning to. “I get that.” 

Quentin’s eyes go sharper at that, and Eliot  _ just  _ has time to worry that he’s given too much away, when the cab comes to a jarring halt. Eliot’s almost afraid to look out the window, but he’s shocked to find that the sudden stop isn’t due to a pile-up of their driver’s own contrivance, but because they’re at the terminal already. After that, there’s the bustle of paying the cabbie, and coaxing High King Margo back into her travel carrier, then ticketing, then security-- which, given High King Margo’s understandable aversion to strange people poking their fingers into her bag, is a real treat. But then finally Eliot gets a few minutes of peace to pick up the new issue of Hipbone-- giving thanks as always to Janet Pluchinsky as he does, for  _ so  _ many reasons-- and longingly consider but ultimately decide against ordering a peppermint mocha with extra whip. He doesn’t reconnect with Quentin again until they’re boarding-- because they’re seated next to each other, thanks  _ so  _ much Brakebills-- and by that time Quentin is so tense and pale that Eliot’s far more concerned about Quentin’s heart actually exploding than about whether he may have inadvertently offered too much of a window into all the shit he hides away. 

“Quentin,” he finally says quietly, once they’ve reached cruising altitude, and Quentin’s eyes are screwed shut in an expression of ecstatic suffering generally reserved for stained-glass renderings of martyrs. “Are you sweating like that because you happened to do a line of coke in the bathroom before we took off?”

Quentin’s eyes fly open at that. “ _ What _ ?” he chokes. Then, “ _ No _ .” Then, quickly after that, “Jesus, why can’t you ever be serious?”

_ Oh, baby boy _ , Eliot thinks, concerningly,  _ you’re nothing  _ but  _ serious, and look where it’s gotten you _ . Instead of actually  _ saying  _ that, he simply nods his head and reaches out to cover Quentin’s chapped hand-- which is nigh upon splintering the armrest-- with his own. The touch nearly sends Quentin out of his skin, and Eliot  _ sharply  _ represses the thought of all the other ways he could touch Quentin, if he  _ really  _ wanted to make the tightly wound little thing lose his mind. 

“ _ Q _ ,” he says again, more-- okay,  _ seriously _ \-- this time. “Do you have a fear of flying?”

It’s a testament to what a gloriously pissy bitch Quentin Coldwater really is, despite the soft, stumbly voice and the cafe-au-lait eyes, that even in his state of heightened distress, he takes the time to turn slowly to Eliot and say, deadpan, “What do  _ you  _ think?”

Eliot bites down the smile that Quentin’s sass calls forth, and makes a mental note to call Henry-- or, ugh, fucking  _ Todd  _ if necessary-- first thing in the AM to make some changes to their travel itinerary, because almost all of the cities they’re hitting on their east-coast swing are technically driveable, and making Quentin do  _ this  _ every other night for a month when there are other options available is just--  _ not  _ happening on Eliot’s watch. 

Eliot’s options for remedying the  _ immediate  _ situation are more limited, however.

It’s probably telling of how close Monster Boy still is to Eliot’s surface that Eliot’s first impulse is to drag Quentin into the tiny bathroom and goad him into fucking Eliot’s face until he’s so out of it that he doesn’t even remember they’re  _ on  _ a plane, until he comes so hard down Eliot’s throat that the mere possibility of air travel retains a sparkle in his mind for  _ decades _ . Eliot of ten years ago, or even five years ago, probably would have made the offer. But Eliot  _ now  _ can recognize that that’s not what Quentin actually wants, and it’s certainly not what Eliot’s fledgling career  _ needs _ . So instead of propositioning his colleague, he taps the back of Quentin’s hand lightly with two fingers. 

“Up,” he says. “We’re switching spots.” 

Quentin looks dubious and confused, but he’s easy enough to lead around in this state-- which touches off yet another line of thoughts that Eliot is ruthlessly repressing. Once they’re resituated, with Eliot on the aisle and Quentin against the window, Eliot makes Quentin jump out of his skin  _ again  _ by leaning over Quentin’s lap to reach for Bambi’s travel bag, which is still on the floor in front of the window seat. Eliot spares a look around for any flight attendants, before unzipping her bag and plopping her gently onto Quentin’s lap. 

“Uhh,” Quentin is saying, shifting adorably as Bambi’s pricky little paws stomp around on his khaki-covered lap, “I’m not sure she’s allowed to be out during the flight . . . “

But Eliot is already ripping open the plastic bag that holds the in-flight blanket (which he would sooner die than touch in any less exigent conditions), and is draping it like an impromptu curtain around Q and Bambi. 

“Relax,” he says, taking the opportunity to lean over Quentin’s shoulder so that he can pat a lock of Margo’s soft fur, ignoring the softness of Quentin’s  _ own  _ silky fur, which is now freed from its heinous wool prison, as it brushes the side of Eliot’s face. “Lap dogs are supposed to be excellent for flight anxiety.”

“Besides,” he adds with a devilish smirk-- because Monster Boy  _ is  _ still a part of him, after all, even if he, like High King Margo, is more bark than bite these days-- “if any flight attendants notice the wriggling inside your blanket fortress, they’ll just assume I’m discreetly jacking you off.” 

The quip is probably pushing his luck with a stranger that absolutely  _ radiates  _ straight-boy vibes as strongly as Quentin does, especially when Eliot’s chin is all but resting on his shoulder. But Quentin surprises and delights once again, by rolling his eyes upward and cracking a grin that makes his pretty eyes crinkle at the corners. 

“I’ve definitely heard of people making animal noises during sex,” he says, “but, uh, I’m really not excited about everyone on this plane thinking I sound like a tiny yorkie when I come.”

“ _ Excuse _ you,” Eliot shoots back, because mock-offense is pretty much the only way to disguise how enormously  _ charmed  _ he is by Quentin right now-- and how curious he is about what Quentin  _ does  _ sound like, at his climax. “High King Margo is all alpha. Seriously, there’s this enormous fucking hound that lives in our building who I think is half werewolf or something that follows her around everywhere she goes, awaiting her orders.”

Quentin is relaxed enough-- or just distracted enough-- by this point that he tentatively reaches out a hand to Bambi. He wins over man and dog  _ both  _ by letting her sniff at his broad, surprisingly strong-looking fingers, before he attempts to pet her. When he does finally scritch his fingertips into the fur just above the purple-black stones of her regally studded collar, Margo’s answering rumble confirms that she and Eliot were truly meant to be, because if there were a speech bubble over her head, it would declare that she is adopting this precious little nerd-- with all of his already-exhausting  _ sturm und drang _ \-- just as quickly as Eliot did. 

She angles her head then, in a way that makes clear that she expects Quentin to rub the tips of her ears now, and Eliot tries to ignore the way it makes his  _ own  _ chest feel, when Quentin accedes to her decree. 

As Quentin rubs his thumb gently over the thin, velvety skin, he tilts his head to one side, bringing it closer to Eliot’s in the process-- probably unintentionally. “Do you know what happened to her eye?” he asks softly. 

Eliot shakes his head. “She’d already lost it by the time we found each other. I don’t think the last people who had her-- took such good care of her,” he manages to say, as evenly as he can.

He can’t help but remember, then, the ratty, one-eyed little thing that still stood fiercer and prouder than any of the other dogs at the shelter, when Eliot had finally decided that he needed at least one connection in his life that wasn’t built on him having a sexy exterior and an unlovable interior. The little dog had looked at him with that one eye in a way seemed to say, ‘okay, tough guy, you ran away, you made a new life, you think you’re ready to actually  _ do  _ something with it now?’

He hopes he doesn’t give any of those memories, or the helpless gratitude they still provoke, away to Quentin. He  _ thinks  _ that he doesn’t. The weight of Quentin’s gaze against Eliot’s profile is intent, but still puzzled-- like Eliot is a mess of collage tiles and Quentin hasn’t figured out the pattern just yet. 

“You’re being really nice to me,” Quentin finally says, after a period of deliberation in which Eliot can all but  _ hear  _ the little wheels in his head turning, their foreheads being as close together as they are. “And I’ve been kind of an asshole to you.”

He’s been more than  _ kind of  _ an asshole. But Eliot only shrugs. “I kind of like assholes,” he says lightly. And there it is again-- the second kind of lying. Eliot’s truest art.

“I can’t decide if you’re kind of an asshole, too, or if I’ve just been projecting that on you,” Quentin says, as he scratches under Bambi’s chin. 

Eliot laughs out loud at that. “Oh, baby boy,” he says-- and it’s okay to say it that way, like it’s a joke-- “I am  _ definitely  _ an asshole.  _ Way  _ more than kind of.” 

“You were an asshole to that lady at the reading, who asked you a question,” Quentin adds, like he’s trying to put all the evidence together, see how it stacks up. 

That hadn’t been Eliot’s intent. Zelda the retro librarian had been collateral damage in a nearly thirty-year game of Eliot playing whatever part, reciting whatever shitty lines, he needs to to  _ survive _ , and damn the consequences to anyone else. All the same . . .

“I probably was,” he allows. 

The admission seems to settle something in Quentin, who goes back to petting Eliot’s dog in silence. He’s calm enough now that Eliot probably doesn’t  _ need  _ to be sitting this close to him, with his head practically resting on Quentin’s shoulder, but he decides to just rest his eyes and go with it anyhow. After all, Quentin doesn’t seem to register his presence one way or another.

Eliot is forced to rethink that last assessment when Quentin speaks again, the moment that Eliot’s eyes shut, as if he’d just been waiting for Eliot’s lids to close. 

“I saw your boarding pass while we were in line,” he offers, out of somewhere that must make sense in the churning recesses of his overactive, literary-wunderkind mind. 

Eliot hums in response, then quiets when Quentin adds, “I saw your middle name.”

Eliot doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t allow his pulse to race in a way that Quentin might notice.

“It’s  _ Nigel _ ,” Quentin finally says. 

There are two types of lying and perfecting the second has been the second-greatest creative project of Eliot’s life, the first being creating  _ himself _ . In moments like this, Eliot is either deeply grateful or deeply resentful of all he’s learned, of all he can never  _ un _ learn.

“Why so it is,” he answers Quentin simply.  _ Evenly.  _

Like he doesn’t feel a thing.


	3. Three

*** * * * ***

**Three**

*** * * * ***

**To:** q.coldwater @ brakebills.com

 **From:** s.canon @ brakebills.com

**Re:** Checking in

Jan. 9, 2020 10:35AM

* * *

Hey there, Coldwater-- 

Just got out of a meeting with our mutual British acquaintance and your name came up. I’ve got some space in my schedule if you want to follow up on our convos this fall about ideas for book three. I know you were reluctant, but I continue to think you should consider the ending we discussed for your fool character. The more I think about it, the more unrealistic the other options feel. Plus if you’re thinking sequel potential, it just seems like there’s not really any story left to tell for that character, you know?

Hit me up when you’re back in NYC and let’s talk more . . .

*****

Quentin grits his teeth as he forces himself to skim the email from the latest of Jane’s ‘consultants.’ Because of course he can’t get a reprieve from  _ this  _ fucking conversation even in-- he looks up to check the sign over the hotel reception desk-- Burlington, Vermont. 

Jane’s been throwing  _ them _ \-- her so-called consultants-- at Quentin pretty much non-stop for the last year and change. They’re mostly other writers on Brakebills’ payroll. Mostly ones that have, you know, actually finished a series. 

(Kind of a lot of ones that have run a series into the ground, too, if you’re asking Quentin, but none of them seem all that interested in  _ asking _ Quentin much of anything.) 

Jane had started out making the introductions with her usual we’ll-just-throw-shit-at-this-problem -in-different-combinations-until-something-sticks determination. But over the last couple months, her ruthless pragmatism has started to take on, like, a violinist-on-the-deck-of-the-Titanic tenacity that reminds Quentin way too much of Julia launching her cute law-school classmates at Quentin during that first year or two after Alice had decided that she didn’t want to take her relationship with Quentin with her to M.I.T.’s physics Ph.D. program. Like failure’s right there on the horizon, but she’s just stubborn enough to make it drag her to the depths kicking and screaming and making Quentin cringe behind his travel mug while listening to some blowhard who writes shitty dystopian knock-offs explain to him that an actually uplifting ending would be too ‘cutesy’ and that he has to find new ways to make his characters and his audience suffer, notwithstanding that Vix already came back from the fucking dead in book two, and Lady Tree survived being exploited by her mentor, and the Fool is-- 

And the Fool is--

Well. The Fool is a lot of things, but mostly he’s really fucking sick of listening to people tell him-- word for word, over and over again, up to and including the jackass professor of the creative writing seminar that he and Eliot had guested at yesterday evening-- that  _ Game of Thrones  _ wouldn’t be  _ Game of Thrones  _ if Ned Stark didn’t get beheaded. Which, whatever-- fair. But also? Not every series is  _ A Song of Ice and Fire _ . 

( _ No, some series are Fillory _ , the cranky professor had said in his thick Russian accent in response to Quentin’s objection, not bothering to hide a condescending smile. Like the Fillory books were the fucking strained peaches you gave to babies before they could handle real food, and not the things that had taught Quentin that there’s life out there that’s worth living, even if you have to look inside antique clocks or write it your fucking self to find it. 

Quentin had been on the verge of calling him a dick when Eliot, who’d been mostly silent for the whole hour, unexpectedly cut in, snapping,  _ If I wanted to write about tragic shit happening to people like Monster Boy I would write for a newspaper _ . A couple brave students had clapped, despite their professor’s sour glare. 

Quentin had kind of wanted to join them.)

Quentin-- finds himself  _ kind of  _ wanting a lot of things, when it comes to Eliot, after functionally living with him for almost a week. The same things things that Quentin had wanted the first moment he saw Eliot, long and lithe and insufferable outside that Hedgebucks, yeah. There’s not really a lot of ambiguity on those; he  _ definitely  _ wants them, but he’s politely ignoring that fact because this isn’t fucking  _ Mad Men  _ and that’s not an acceptable way to think about your work colleague, no matter how shameless a flirt Eliot is. But there are other things, too, that Quentin  _ maybe  _ wants ( _ probably _ wants), that have less to do with Eliot being long and lithe and more to do with the fact that he tries to keep Quentin warm and ease Quentin’s panic attacks, and that while he  _ is  _ still totally insufferable sometimes, Quentin, to no one’s surprise, suffers really, really gladly. Even when said suffering involves Eliot turning up the radio in the ridiculously fast sportscar he bossed Todd into renting for them and belting showtunes every time Quentin tries to call him out for, like, pretending to develop a hacking cough then chirping,  _ thanks for asking, next! _ , whenever some poor person asks him a genuine question at one of their Q&As.

He’s got a gorgeous singing voice, at least. Quentin can’t even pretend to be surprised about it.

Quentin rakes his hands through his hair, wishing he could push back the nagging  _ he-gives-a-shit, he-gives-a-shit-not  _ spiral that’s taking up more and more of his brainspace these days with the same rough efficiency. He settles for taking another sip of lukewarm-at-best tea from the hotel’s continental breakfast buffet, instead. It’s a testament to how little he wants to think about whether he’s the same naive idiot he’s always been for feeling like the answer, despite literally every word out of Eliot’s mouth, is  _ he-gives-a-shit _ , that he turns his attention back to the email from Jane’s latest enlisted enforcer. 

He can admit to himself that it’s probably not fair to be pissed at Jane for the never-ending introductions to more commercially reliable writers. Getting Quentin to write actual words that other people can then read is literally Jane’s job, after all. And Quentin  _ has  _ been-- just, fucking outright  _ lying  _ to her about his draft for months now. What else is she supposed to think, other than that Quentin needs some functional professional to grab him by the balls and drag him through book three?

(Also, there’s no way for Jane to know this latest consultant’s particular vision for how  _ Forty Circles  _ should wrap up, or how it makes a chasm open up in Quentin’s gut, every time he sees the words ‘fool’ and ‘ending’ in the same sentence, when he knows exactly what they mean by ‘ending.’ How the bottom falls out even more when Quentin thinks about the number of people that have waited in line at book signings to show him playing cards inked onto their skin or “love and stories” engraved inside their wedding bands, and the fact that if he’d written the trilogy ten or fifteen years ago, _ he _ probably wouldn’t have thought the fool had any story left to tell, either.)

There’s also the fact that Quentin’s performance on the book tour has been--  _ yeah. _ As he expected, basically. They’re only a week in, and he’s already gotten three different scolding emails from Jane. Based on the timing of the emails, and how they coincide with the regular texts he gets from Julia and/or her terrifyingly competent campaign manager, Kady-- who somehow finds the time to be a total fucking  _ fiend  _ on her secret tumblr account in between helping Julia actually run for actual  _ Congress _ \-- Jane tends to write them every time a new video posts online. 

One of  _ those  _ videos. 

Quentin tries not to watch them, or at least  _ tells  _ himself he’s going to try not to watch them. But, like, who is he even trying to kid with that bullshit? He’s watched all of them, sometimes on loop, usually around 2:30 AM, which in his adult-lifetime of experience, is the magical sliver of night when peak hating-himself hours and peak no-self-control-on-the-internet hours overlap. So, yeah, he knows perfectly well how the videos go. Can imagine Jane sighing out loud in her glass-walled office, with her chin digging into her steepled fingers, forehead creasing as she watches someone’s grainy, zoomed-in cellphone footage of Quentin stuttering and  _ uhh _ -ing and just generally failing his way through a non-answer on book three, until--

Well. 

Until Eliot eventually jumps in to save him. 

Which Eliot does.

Every time.

The first time it had happened, back in Manhattan, it had-- so, okay, like many things in this world, it had basically pissed Quentin right the fuck off. And Quentin, true to form, had been a fucking brat about it. He hadn’t given his reaction much thought at the time, definitely hadn’t regretted it. Hadn’t  _ started  _ regretting it until later that night, when he was 30,000 feet in the air and calm enough to take shallow sips of the gross Lipton tea that Eliot had ordered  _ for  _ Quentin from the flight attendant.

On the surface, nothing has changed since that first night of the tour-- as Quentin tells himself often. Each time that Eliot has thrown Quentin a line since then, it’s been as flippant and overbearing as it was in Manhattan-- the same meaningless patter or a cheap double-entendre that makes everyone in the room look at  _ him  _ and not at Quentin, as if Eliot has simply grown tired of Quentin getting all the attention. But Quentin has more subtext now than he did then-- subtext that looks like  _ ELIOT NIGEL WAUGH  _ in all caps on a printout boarding pass and sounds like Eliot calling Henry’s office the morning after their flight to Portland and waggling his eyebrows at Quentin while pretending to whine at Todd like an entitled little shit who just wants the bulk of their remaining flights cancelled so that he can drive something sleek and Italian on Brakebills’ dime. 

It’s not that Eliot  _ isn’t  _ an asshole, basically. It’s that Eliot isn’t  _ only  _ an asshole. Quentin hopes, anyway. Because regardless of what Eliot is or isn’t, there’s no point denying how hard Quentin had grinned this morning while he watched Eliot dissect a hotel English muffin with a plastic knife and then gape at its pale, chalky insides like he was witnessing a Greek tragedy come to life, all the while sneaking scraps of cut-up sausage into the yipping leather bag at his feet. 

There’s  _ also  _ no point denying that Quentin wishes Eliot was still here sharing the table with Quentin, if for no other reason than that if he  _ was  _ here, instead of having swanned back upstairs for a second morning shower, Quentin wouldn’t need to work so hard to avoid thinking about the fact that, on the other side of a flimsy plastic keycard, Eliot sometimes takes off his carefully chosen clothes and lets soap and hot water take the long, slick ride down his fucking mesmerizing body. 

The phone at Quentin’s elbow buzzes right exactly then, and the implied censure at his train of thought makes him jump out of his seat. And also shout, “fuck.” 

The mom who’d taken Eliot’s seat across the little table from Quentin in the hotel dining area glares at him, and gathers up her daughter’s styrofoam bowl of Rainbow Beeholes, bustling them over to a different, recently vacated table. 

Quentin tries to offer an apologetic look, but even he can tell he’s making things more awkward rather than less, so eventually he gives up and just looks down at the message on his phone. In spite of yet another social fail, his mood lifts when he sees the word  _ Jules  _ on the screen.

When he swipes to open the message, he’s greeted by < _ So have you met Bernie Sanders yet?? _ >.

Quentin snorts out loud-- which is probably not improving his case to the weirded-out mom, but Quentin doesn’t even do all that well with his  _ own  _ mom, so,  _ shrug _ . His thumbs are tapping across the screen, < _ yeah, he’s hanging out across the street w ben & jerry> _ . He knows it’ll make Julia laugh, and he hopes that laughter will be thanks enough for the fact that she bothers to know what city Quentin is in on what day of the tour, when Quentin himself feels surprised every morning when he pulls up his weather app to find out what super New England-y town he’s woken up in. 

He can tell he’s right about making Julia laugh when she texts back, < _ Always a comedian, this one _ >. 

His screen lights up with the blinking dots that indicate Julia is still typing. When her message finally comes through, Quentin laughs himself to read < _ Kady says whoever was posting the pictures from your guest-teaching thing last night was quote ‘one thirsty-ass mf’ _ >.

< _ Pretty sure it was the prof’s wife? _ > he writes back, although ‘pretty sure’ is an understatement. The woman had to have been a good twenty years younger than Professor Mayakovsky-- which wasn’t all that surprising, given that everyone knew Mayakovsky used to work at Brakebills with Jane and Henry, before he got shunted off to a remote climate for being a fucking creep to the interns (because  _ teaching undergrads  _ is a good placement for someone with  _ that  _ background, apparently). What was  _ more  _ surprising was the way that the woman had looked at Quentin like she was unabashedly picturing him in the shower. A couple years ago, Quentin probably would have dived headfirst into  _ that  _ mistake, notwithstanding that her husband was, like, more bear than person. But as it was, he’d just felt unnerved by her attention, without chasing that discomfort into something he could feel even worse about later. 

The phone buzzes in his hand, distracting from thoughts of his emotional progress, such as it is. 

< _ People of tumblr agree the man-bun is a good look for you _ >. 

Quentin’s immediate instinct is to type back something self-deprecating, even though he knows that Julia will call him out for it. She seems to anticipate his instinct, though (twenty years of friendship will do that, probably), and sends a second and third and fourth message before he has a chance to reply. 

< _ Opinion is more mixed on your copilot _ >.

Quentin wishes that statement didn’t make his brows draw together in confusion at how  _ anyone  _ could look at Eliot and have  _ any  _ reaction other than thirty solid seconds of slack-jawed staring, but it does. At least until he reads Julia’s follow-up messages.

< _ They can’t decide if he looks (a) like he’s the deposed king of a very sexually open planet, or (b) like he’s in the middle of dying elegantly for his art in an absinthe-soaked garret _ >.

< _ Either way, it’s safe to say they’re into it>. _

Quentin knows he’s probably grinning like an idiot at that distillation of Eliot’s ascot-and- smoking-jacket look from the night before, mostly because of the way it tugs forward a memory from the past weekend of Eliot draped across the too-small-for-him sofa in Quentin’s hotel room in-- maybe New Hampshire?-- sighing,  _ Q, if you had ever seen me in silk brocade you would know that I was  _ born  _ to be a mostly ornamental monarch _ . And Quentin fucking  _ giggling  _ about it. 

His thumbs are flying, typing back < _ god, he’ll love the deposed king thing he already acts like one of those insanely regal cats. like i’m pretty sure if he’d been around back when we used to play fillory with the map underneath the table he would have just demanded to be rupert every time. although actually he knows every fucking word of the rent soundtrack, so he’s probably good either way, honestly _ >, without pausing to think about things like  _ exactly  _ how well Julia knows him. 

Quentin _does_ remember those things, of course-- too late to make any difference, as per usual-- as he watches the dots on his screen blink, then stop, then blink again, then stop again. He just manages to stop himself from scrolling up while he awaits his fate, to check exactly how much longer his most recent text bubble is than virtually any other message he’s sent to Julia while not drunk or rewatching the horrible-idea mid-’90s feature-film adaptation of the Fillory books (or both). 

When the verdict finally comes in, he can practically  _ hear  _ Julia’s shrewd, smug tone in the words < _ Well, Rupert always was your favorite _ >. 

Quentin thinks through his options for responding-- none of them any fucking good-- and is working himself up to a solid panic-move, when he’s saved by the fact that Julia is a grown up with actual responsibilities. 

< _ ANYway _ > she types, < _ I’ve only got a couple minutes before I have to leave for an event, but I have some news that I wanted you to hear directly from me _ >.

Quentin only has a couple seconds to panic in a totally different way, before Julia, the firmest of believers in just fucking ripping off the bandaid, writes < _ Persephone Fox is apparently planning to endorse me _ >.

Quentin stares for a moment, because he does love Julia and he does give a shit about what goes on in the world (even if it’s kind of hard for him to get his head out of his own ass long enough to notice sometimes), but he’s not the political junkie she is. So it takes him a beat to place why the news makes him feel in his gut like more than a simple congrats is in order. 

When the reason hits him, he drops his phone to the table with a clatter.

< _ Persephone Fox as in Reynard Fox’s mother? _ > he finally manages to type, after fumbling to pick the phone back up and thumb his way back to the right screen.

< _ Yup _ >.

Quentin can hear  _ that  _ one in Julia’s voice, too, right down to the popping of the ‘p.’ 

He’s torn for a response, searching for words even though they’re supposed to be his stock in fucking trade, the one thing he  _ is  _ capable of wrangling. Part of him wants to tell Julia that this is a big fucking deal, because the mother of a sitting Congressional rep, who had a long political career of her own, endorsing her son’s  _ challenger _ is-- well, it’s fucking huge. But given the--  _ everything  _ surrounding Julia’s run, it’s at least a couple million other things, too. 

He finally settles on asking < _ how do you feel about it? _ >.

The blinking dots this time don’t make him feel judged. They make him want to be back in New York with his arm around Julia, even though he knows she doesn’t really need it, not the way he would need it in her shoes.

< _ Grateful, I guess? _ > she finally answers. < _ And also pissed for feeling grateful? Because it sucks to feel indebted to someone who protected him when we all came forward against him in the first place. But also I wanna win, and this is going to help with that, like a lot. So. Yeah. All of that, mostly _ >.

Quentin’s eyebrows probably look like a pretzel to the other guests walking through the lobby, but so fucking be it. He wants to say something to Julia that will  _ help _ , but he’s cut off by another incoming message. 

< _ Anyway, Kady’s glaring at me, so I really do have to go. I just didn’t want you to hear it on the news or something _ >.

Quentin kind of suspects it’s a lie to end the conversation, but he  _ does  _ trust that, whenever Julia  _ actually  _ needs to be at her event, Kady’s by her side in the mean time. Maybe glaring, maybe not. _ Definitely _ distracting her with memes or policy papers or threatening to literally kick asses, depending on what exactly Julia needs right now. That knowledge makes it easier for Quentin to set aside the big part of himself that wants to cling and belabor the point and process this  _ his  _ way instead of Julia’s way, and instead type a simple and true < _ love you, jules _ >.

She types back < _ I know _ >, because of course she does, but a confetti flood of hearts covers Quentin’s screen a second later. He’s still smiling softly at the reminder (which he shouldn’t still need at this point, but he does, he just fucking always  _ does _ ), when a familiar yipping pierces the low buzz of the lobby. 

When he looks up from his phone, Eliot and High King Margo are striding through the lobby like they own the place. Eliot’s in a long wool coat that’s the same tan-black-red plaid as one of Julia’s purses, with enormous sunglasses (he’s wearing sunglasses  _ indoors _ , of course he is), and a peachy-pink muffler that seems like it should clash with the coat but doesn’t, probably? 

(Quentin’s not really sure about how, like, color palettes are supposed to work, as Julia has pointed out many times. He  _ is  _ sure that the sight of the muffler is the reason for the sudden guilty twinge in his stomach, as he thinks of the fact that his entire suitcase is filled with the cigarettes-and-winter smell of the long purple scarf that Quentin _ is  _ planning to return to Eliot. Any day now. Theoretically.)

High King Margo, who is prancing at Eliot’s side, walking, like, sextuple time to make her tiny strides match his majestic ones, is wearing a little magenta coat of her own. Somehow, she looks even  _ more  _ assured that she should and does rule everyone she surveys than he does. 

Quentin should  _ hate  _ them. He has never in his life  _ liked  _ people (or animals, probably) who act like life is this fucking easy. But when Eliot raises his hand and yells out, “ _ Quentin! _ ,” Quentin doesn’t focus on the fact that Eliot’s voice is, objectively speaking, too loud to be polite to all the other people trying to use the shared space. He just smiles, because he can’t really help it. Because Eliot is smiling at  _ him _ , and Quentin can count on one hand the number of people who’ve ever looked just, like,  _ delighted  _ to see  _ Quentin _ , outside of a book signing.

Eliot’s made it to Quentin’s table now, and he makes a show of looking over Quentin’s shoulder to see his laptop screen. Quentin, in a move he regrets before he’s even half-way through it, snaps the computer shut even faster than the time that Dad-- that his  _ dad _ had walked into his bedroom without knocking shortly after adolescent Quentin had discovered the  _ other  _ kind of fanart. 

“Clearly not suspicious at  _ all _ ,” Eliot hums, one eyebrow making its laconic way up above the rim of the giant sunglasses. 

Quentin opens his mouth to re-enact some of the highlights of his various YouTube star turns, but Eliot waves him off. “Just let me imagine it was a particularly willowy elf topping the shit out of some barrel-chested dwarf,” he says, coming disturbingly close to what young Quentin had been so intent on hiding away from Ted. 

Quentin rolls his eyes, and Eliot smiles like Quentin’s sourpuss makes his  _ day _ , and says, “Bambi and I were going in search of proper caffeine. Fancy a jailbreak?” 

Quentin raises an eyebrow. “You know, you can just  _ say  _ that you want to go somewhere where you can get, like, a caramel milkshake masquerading as coffee, instead of pretending you’re in it for the caffeine,” he says, even though he’s already packing his laptop into his bag and shrugging on the peacoat he’d draped over his chair when he’d set his morning goal of answering emails until breaking for lunch, instead of crawling into a bed he doesn’t have to make and staring at the ceiling until tonight’s reading.

Eliot reaches forward and straightens out the back of Quentin’s collar where it’s folded in on itself. “And  _ you  _ can just admit that you know it’s called a frappuccino,” he counters. “Hedgebucks is everywhere, Q. No one believes your ascetic snobbery act.” 

Eliot’s fingertips graze the nape of Quentin’s neck, through the curtain of long hair, as he continues to smooth out the collar, long after it feels righted. Quentin shivers at the touch, and Eliot does him the favor of pretending that it’s because of the bracing cold as they step through the lobby door.

Eliot looks at Quentin for a long moment and Quentin has the crazy suspicion that they’re both thinking of the purple scarf squirreled away in Quentin’s luggage. The suspicion turns out not to be that crazy, after all, when Eliot presses his lips together and looks pointedly at where the old peacoat, even when fully buttoned, leaves Quentin’s thin henley shirt exposed down to the sternum. 

Eliot doesn’t ask about the scarf, though. Instead he just lifts his eyebrow and says, “Is your atrocious beanie not joining us for this excursion?”

The stern glare Quentin fixes him with-- because  _ Julia  _ made that hat-- comes out looking more like what a wet and angry kitten would conjure up, going by the soft protrusion of Eliot’s lower lip. 

The hat is upstairs in Quentin’s hotel room, with the purple scarf. And if Quentin knows anything about himself, it’s that if he goes up for the hat now, he’s going to bring the scarf down, too, and be super fucking awkward about it. So he just shakes his head, hoping without much basis that the long fall of his hair will protect his ears from the cold. 

Eliot sighs, sounding both taxed and fond. “Do you at least have  _ gloves _ ?” 

Quentin pushes his already-red hands into his pockets, where they brush against the rough wool of his dad’s old pair that he still can’t quite bring himself to put on. He can feel his cheeks go red, to match his fingers, but he’s hoping Eliot will chalk _ that  _ up to the cold, too.

They trudge along in silence for almost a block, down the snowy sidewalk, toward the red brick buildings that make up the University of Vermont’s campus. Well, Quentin trudges. Eliot  _ glides  _ and Margo  _ marches _ . Margo stops abruptly at one point to piss on the base of a lamppost, and Quentin and Eliot wait for her, like the glorified footmen they are. When she’s done sniffing at the yellow marks her own pee left in the snow, apparently satisfied with her work, Eliot jiggles the leash gently. 

Once they’re all three moving again, Eliot looks over to Quentin and asks, apropos of apparently nothing, “So who were you texting back in the lobby that had you smiling like that?”

Quentin half-wants to ask,  _ smiling like what?, _ but he stops himself, and instead stutters out, “Uh, a friend.”

“ _ Friend _ ?” Eliot teases. Quentin  _ thinks  _ he’s teasing, at least. “Or  _ girl _ friend?”

Quentin snorts at that, because didn’t fourteen-year-old Quentin wish? And fifteen-year-old Quentin, to be honest. And sixteen-year-old Quentin, and basically all the Quentins up until Alice Quinn sat down next to him in freshman comp and frowned when he said he was a literature major. 

“Yeah, definitely not,” he answers, without any of the regret the answer would have brought up once. “ _ Best  _ friend.” 

Eliot’s eyebrows over the rim of those fucking sunglasses look-- seem--  _ feel _ \--  _ ugh,  _ whatever, Quentin just-- gets the impression that Eliot’s curious, somehow, about Quentin’s answer. So Quentin rambles on, because that’s one of his, like, two conversational moves. 

“She’s-- um, she’s running for Congress, actually?” It’s not a question, obviously, but it kind of comes out that way. “She had some news to share.”

“ _ Congress _ Congress?” Eliot asks, sounding almost-- for him-- impressed. 

Quentin nods. “I don’t know how much you follow politics--”

Eliot just hums, and Quentin goes on. “-- but, um, she’s challenging Reynard Fox for his seat? He’s had it forever. It’s kind of a big deal.”

Quentin will feel-- guilty, probably, later, that he just assumed that because Eliot, like, buys fashion magazines at airports instead of  _ The Economist _ , that that meant Eliot didn’t know anything current events. But in his defense, Eliot also makes a concerted effort to look like he doesn’t  _ care  _ about most things-- with some limited but (maybe?) important exceptions. In any event, Quentin’s not ready for Eliot’s forehead to wrinkle and for him to say, consideringly, “I thought Fox was being challenged by one of his staffers who accused him of--”

He stops abruptly. Margo is apparently not a fan of following  _ other  _ people’s sudden stops and starts, and she looks back at Eliot disapprovingly. But Eliot is hyperfocused on Quentin.

“Holy  _ shit _ ,” he blurts out-- part exclamation, part question.

“Uh,” Quentin answers, because the story, the story of Julia and her coworkers, is pretty much-- fully in the public domain at this point (there was, like, a _Time_ magazine cover), but it’s still not really his story to tell. “Yeah,” he settles on saying. “That’s-- that’s her.” 

Quentin watches as Eliot ponders the information for a moment, even as Margo tugs at the leash. When she yaps, Eliot starts walking again, and it’s like the movement of his long legs snaps his mind back into gear, too. 

“Well, your friend is a fucking hero,” he declares firmly. “She has my vote.”

Quentin has to smile at that, because, well. “Yeah, she is,” he agrees, whole-heartedly. 

“I, uh. She’s actually the inspiration for one of the characters in  _ Forty Circles _ ,” he offers, after they walk another few paces. Not that-- not that  _ that’s  _ the important thing about Julia, obviously. He just thinks-- it might-- that Eliot might-- that it might  _ mean  _ something, to Eliot  _ Nigel  _ Waugh, to know where Quentin draws  _ his _ inspiration from. 

But maybe Quentin’s reading too much into things. God knows it wouldn’t be the first time.

He checks out of the corner of his eye, to see if Eliot is still listening, and he’s surprised to  _ not  _ feel surprised when he sees that Eliot  _ is _ . 

“She’s, um-- Lady Tree is based on her, on Julia,” he says, flapping his hands a little as he says it, because the sort of--  _ contentment  _ that bubbles up at seeing that Eliot  _ is  _ paying attention him, that Eliot  _ does  _ care (enough to pay attention, at least), doesn’t really know how to come out any other way.

“ _ Ah _ ,” Eliot answers, his own gloved hands still and cool, one holding Margo’s leash and the other half-tucked in his coat pocket. He’s knowing and mysterious all at once as he says, “I guess that explains it, then.”

Quentin furrows his eyebrows. “What does it explain, exactly?”

Eliot just smiles at him, the Oracle at Delphi in Ray-Bans. “Why she’s the fan favorite.” 

Eliot’s not  _ wrong  _ about the way that Quentin’s fans feel about Lady Tree-- not at all. But Eliot’s never read a word of  _ Forty Circles  _ and has only heard the two or three passages that Quentin reads aloud at events, so Quentin’s not sure how exactly Eliot  _ knows  _ what he knows. 

Quentin’s looking for a polite way to say that, when Eliot rolls his eyes and says, “There are three dryads for one of every other kind of cosplayer at our book readings.” His voice is gentle, but the quiet reproach makes Quentin wince all the same when he adds, “I do pay  _ some  _ attention, you know.” 

Quentin’s hands are fully uncontainable, after that, as he mumbles his way through, “No, right. Right. Of course you, uh--”

It only stops-- the hand-fluttering  _ and _ the rambling-- when Eliot cuts him off. 

“What about the witch with the blue lightning on her cheeks?” he asks diplomatically. “What inspired her?”

A week ago Quentin would have felt sort of relieved but also resentful at Eliot just assuming he needs to be saved from talking himself into a circle. Now he’s  _ mostly  _ relieved-- or. Well. As relieved as he can ever be when someone asks him to talk about the character he based on the first ( _ only _ ) person he’s ever loved who loved him back, right up until she decided she didn’t anymore. 

“She seems more--  _ controversial _ ,” Eliot adds, with a genuine relish on the last word that would confirm how much of a natural shit-stirrer Eliot is, if Quentin had been in any doubt.

“Uh, yeah, you could say that,” Quentin answers, forcing both hands into his pockets-- as if they’ll fucking stay there. “Vix is-- People are-- she’s very mission-focused, is the thing,” he finally settles on. “She’s-- So, okay. She’s the one who, at the start of the first book, has been prophesied to take on the, uh--”

He peeks up at Eliot, who rolls his eyes. “Just say monster,” Eliot says. “ _ Beast. _ Big bad. More than that will be lost on me.” 

The dumb-and-pretty act would be more convincing if not for the little extra emphasis Eliot places on “Beast,” which is, in fact, what the characters usually call the primary antagonist of book one. 

“ _ Right _ ,” Quentin says with a roll of his own eyes. But he doesn’t say more because-- hey, it’s kind of nice to get to be the indulgent one now and then, instead of the one who needs so damn badly to be indulged. 

“So, uh, Vix is the one who knows she has to fight the Beast. And she’s-- she’s much smarter and more driven than, like, anyone around her. And she knows it. But she’s also kind of-- self-conscious about it. And she can be-- rough on some of the other characters sometimes, I guess. She’s not really-- I don’t think she really--”

“She’s a woman but she doesn’t want to be your mommy or girlfriend,” Eliot fills in-- more correctly than he even knows. 

At Quentin’s relieved nod, Eliot sighs. “Well, speaking as someone who knows a thing or two about transgressing narrow-minded views of gender norms, I can see how that could-- inspire detractors,” he finishes delicately. 

Quentin looks down at the sidewalk. They’ve been walking for blocks now-- because, Quentin suspects, there’s no distance Eliot  _ wouldn’t  _ go for chocolate syrup and whipped cream with just enough espresso thrown in for plausible deniability-- and the white-gray slush on the sidewalks is seeping into his canvas low-tops. His dampening socks are somehow easier to think about than the anxiety he feels every time someone tweets that  _ Vix is such a bitch, why couldn’t she just stay dead? _ , or some reviewer insists that Vix’s constant annoyance with the Fool is really just a cover for a crush she doesn’t know what to do with. It makes Quentin worry that all the hate and patronization-- or the  _ inspired detractors _ , as Eliot calls it in his patrician way-- is more than just people being jerks on the internet. That maybe they’re picking up on resentments that  _ Quentin  _ put in the text in the first place. 

That’s not what Quentin has ever intended, and it’s not what he wants-- not anymore, anyway. Not on the good days, and not on the medium ones, either. Vix is a  _ hero _ , as far as Quentin is concerned, and there’s nothing ambiguous about it. She’s complicated and not, like, the most considerate of other people’s feelings sometimes, and she’s deeply stubborn, but she’s  _ strong _ . And she cares just as much about protecting vulnerable people and righting wrongs as Lady Tree does, even though she doubts her ability to actually do it. She’s a  _ good person _ . And if some part of him still wonders sometimes, on the  _ not  _ good or medium days, what it means that a person that good didn’t want him  _ back _ , then--

“ _ Oh _ .”

Eliot’s voice-- which sounds oddly strangled-- pulls Quentin’s attention up from his soaking shoes. His gaze on Quentin is strange-- although maybe that’s just those fucking movie-star sunglasses getting in the way. His face is flushed from walking through the cold. Two of the sporadic snow flurries that have started to fall catch in his dark hair for a second, spotting it white, before melting away. Another lands on the soft fold of his muffler, where it hides the line of his throat. His lips are parted as he keeps on staring at Quentin in that weirdly poleaxed way, and when his tongue darts out to wet them, Quentin suddenly wants to trace the path so  _ fucking _ badly that, for a split second, he thinks he might fall over with how much he needs it.

Eliot’s words, when they come, cut through the haze of Quentin’s yearning. 

“ _ She _ ’s the one you’re in love with,” he’s saying, like he’s just solved a big mystery. “Not the tree goddess. Whoever you based Vix on.” 

Quentin wants to deny it, because he’s  _ not _ in love with Alice anymore. He’s not. That sounds-- fuck, he  _ knows  _ that sounds defensive. But he’s really not. The same way he’s not in love with Julia anymore. Yes, there are still--  _ what ifs _ , sometimes. He thinks about him and Alice, and what happened, and why it happened more than he probably should.  _ Still _ . But Quentin knows himself well enough to get that that’s because-- well. Because he’s not great at completely letting go of things that make him feel like shit, okay? And no one has ever matched Alice at providing object lessons on why he’s not  _ quite _ good enough-- except maybe his mom. 

But all that’s pretty heavy to dump on someone that’s already been subjected to Quentin’s mid-Q&A blackouts and Quentin’s mid-flight panic attacks, and maybe Quentin would like to come off as not so fucking fragile in front of the hot, confident guy for a couple more minutes, so instead of vomiting up his various Alice-related hang-ups and neuroses all over Eliot, he shrugs and says, “Just an ex.”

“I’m not sure if anyone who inspires a  _ literal  _ trilogy qualifies as ‘just’ anything.”

Eliot’s joking-- mostly. Or joking-not-joking, in that way he does. Quentin knows that ( _ thinks  _ that), but the bag holding his laptop is weighing heavy on him in all fucking senses, especially after his extended rumination on all the ways that he could screw up finishing Vix’s story, and so he can’t help himself from kicking at the sidewalk slush and saying, “It’s actually only  _ two  _ books, at the moment.” 

Eliot just sighs, but he also steps in closer and slides an arm around Quentin’s waist, squeezing at Quentin’s hip beneath the worn-out wool. He hasn’t offered Quentin any platitudes yet, any of the times that the vengeful specter of Quentin’s ongoing professional crisis has arisen between them. Hasn’t said  _ you’ll figure it out, champ _ , or  _ let me tell you about this great writers’ retreat _ , or  _ hey, maybe just kill off the character that you started writing to remind yourself that writing  _ yourself  _ off wasn’t the only option _ . 

His arm around Quentin makes Quentin feel less alone, even without the free advice-- maybe  _ especially  _ because it doesn’t come with free advice. So does Eliot’s voice, when he adds, cheerily fatalistic, “Well, that’s already one more than  _ I’m _ ever likely to write.” 

Quentin feels his eyebrows pinch together and he looks up at Eliot, trusting Eliot’s arm around him to guide him through the sidewalk that’s getting busier, as the fringes of campus give way to a more commercial area. Quentin  _ wants  _ to ask why Eliot’s so sure that  _ he  _ won’t publish again, but Eliot seems to realize that, and forcibly changes the conversation before Quentin can get there.

“So tell me the big lost-love story,” Eliot is saying, the arm at Quentin’s waist pulling them inexorably forward. “You and your I-R-L Vix.”

Quentin’s ears flush red at the invitation, and then redder still when the hand at his waist darts up to cup one of those ears for a moment, because of course Eliot assumes they’re about to fall off from cold and that  _ he’s _ supposed to fix it for Quentin. 

“Um, what should I say?” Quentin manages to ask, when the supple leather of Eliot’s glove is no longer soft against his earlobe. 

Eliot just looks down at him, inscrutable behind his sunglasses. “Q. You’re a  _ writer _ ,” he chides-- or,  _ pretends _ to chide. Quentin is pretty sure.

Quentin is also pretty sure that, “Um, I think that’s really-- more  _ your  _ kind of writing.”

Eliot bawks out a laugh that makes a few people passing on the sidewalk turn to look at them. Quentin hunches deeper into his coat on instinct, and tries not to think about how much they must look like a  _ couple  _ to the people who notice them-- like they’re two hearty New Englanders who don’t give a fuck about the snow out walking their dog, instead of a broken-brained writer from New Jersey and a mystery man with equal penchants for coddling broken things and pretending not to.

“If I had asked you what size strap-on she wore when she used to peg you,  _ that  _ would be more my kind of writing,” Eliot says, putting on the full show for the benefit of the gawkers, and making the rest of Quentin’s face go as red as his ears in the process. “I’m asking you for the  _ misty watercolor memories  _ edit. That’s  _ so  _ your speed.”

Given the number of reviews Quentin got (back when Quentin had books out to  _ get  _ reviewed), that used phrases like ‘romantic in the most tender-hearted sense,’ he can’t really object. So instead he leans a little harder into Eliot’s side, using a gust of wind as a pretense, and says, “We were-- college sweethearts, I guess?”

There’s nothing  _ wrong  _ about that description, even if it doesn’t totally capture the frenetic, on-off, bickering-by-daylight, fucking-like-foxes-by-moonlight,  _ why-won’t-you-let-me-love-you _ ,  _ maybe-if-you-actually-tried-to-get-out-of-bed-before-dinner  _ energy that had characterized he and Alice’s college experience. 

He can  _ tell  _ the picture it paints for Eliot is idealized, by the way Eliot hums seriously and says, “How very Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal. I’m casting you as the Ali, of course-- minus the tragic ending. I mean, the affinity for knitwear  _ alone _ .” 

Quentin has--  _ no  _ idea what any of that means, so he says, “Uh, sure,” because that’s been serving him pretty well when Eliot-- who had just blinked those pretty fucking eyes at Quentin when Quentin had mentioned  _ The Silmarillion _ \-- goes down some kind of pop-culture rabbit hole that  _ Quentin  _ has no access to. 

They come to a stop at a crosswalk, Eliot looping High King Margo’s leash around his hand a few extra times to keep her close, when an idea comes to Quentin that makes him smile. 

“Did  _ you  _ have a college sweetheart?” he asks, charmed, suddenly, at the vision that pops into his writer’s brain, of a younger, ganglier Eliot pointedly declining to wear his American Dream of a boyfriend’s varsity jacket. 

(Quentin’s even more charmed at the edited vision that follows that one, of that same younger Eliot but  _ without  _ the jock boyfriend, working up a grungy-haired nerd who’s just trying to hide behind a red solo cup at someone else’s party, until the nerd realizes mid-way through ranting at the prick in the inscrutable designer clothes that he’s smiling harder than he has in fucking months.)

But Eliot’s face does that  _ thing _ again, where it goes blank without  _ changing  _ in any discernible way. It’s kind of amazing that he can do it even behind his dark glasses, Quentin can’t help but note, even though that’s not really where Quentin’s focus lies.

“ _ Ah _ , no,” Eliot says evenly-- like he’s daring the world to detect any  _ trace  _ of emotion in his voice. “That would probably have required more than a couple semesters.”

Quentin is well aware that he’s an Ivy League brat who tends to forget that not everyone went to the same schools he did and also-- yes, it’s fucking true-- a snob, so he’s very careful not to let anything seep into his tone as he asks-- mildly, he thinks-- “You never finished?”

“Turns out,” Eliot drawls, his mouth a perfectly straight line, “scholarships are hard to maintain when you’re regularly ingesting an amount of cocaine that puts all of  _ this _ \--” he gestures at the mound of dirty snow that a plow has piled up in front of the curb beside them-- “to shame.” 

There’s  _ so  _ much to unpack in there. Starting with why a kid who was, like, swaddled in Chanel or something the way Eliot acts like he was, would have needed a scholarship in the first place. Detouring to how much sense it suddenly makes, why Eliot was even blanker and more reticent in front of a group of ten advanced creative writing students yesterday than he is in front of a packed house at their bookstore events. And ending with, how much of Eliot is as okay and impenetrable as the charmed-life princeling he pretends to be, and how much is as cracked and lonely as his Monster Boy?

There’s more to ask after that, actually. But Quentin gets stuck on that last one. Can’t seem to make himself think past it. Can’t seem to think about anything else at all, really, except how Eliot keeps trying so hard to make sure  _ Quentin’s _ okay, even though he does it, every time, by pretending to be the worst version of himself.

It’s the last thought that makes Quentin decide, as they’re standing there waiting for the light to change, to put on a full-body shiver, then tack on an, “It’s  _ really _ cold,” for good measure, while looking up at Eliot like the needy, high-maintenance baby that Julia doesn’t need and Alice didn’t want and his poor dad kept having to take care of, long past the time that Quentin should have been the one taking care of  _ him _ . 

The quirk of Eliot’s lips says that Quentin’s not as good an actor as Eliot himself-- which, no shit. But he pulls Quentin in tighter against him all the same, his own rigid shoulders melting a little as he does. Quentin counts the move as a success for that reason alone, even if Eliot adds a put-upon sigh as if to say  _ watch and observe how one properly pretends not to give a damn _ . Also, Quentin can’t be sure, but he thinks he feels the brush of Eliot’s lips against the top of his head, before the walk sign lights up and Eliot’s ushering him across the street, where the Hedgebucks is finally in sight. 

“Okay, here’s the deal,” Eliot is saying, business-like now, as they come to stop in front of the Hedgebucks. He’s toying with the open collar of Quentin’s coat with one hand, in a way that makes Quentin want to press up on his toes and bring his mouth to the same height as Eliot’s just to see what would  _ happen _ . “They’re not going to let Bambi inside, and I don’t trust you to order your own scalding dishwater, let alone my finely calibrated beverage experience.” 

Quentin sees where Eliot’s going, and he doesn’t mind, but he  _ is  _ going to give Eliot shit about it. “You just don’t want to tell me how many pumps of gingerbread syrup you’re going to ask them to put in there,” he says, deadpan. 

Eliot gives a sharp tug to Quentin’s collar that does nothing to calm down the part of Quentin that wants to try to fucking-- nuzzle their noses together or something equally insane. “I’m beyond shame, Coldwater. Haven’t you read my book?”

Eliot’s teasing again, throwing back Quentin’s obnoxious question from the first time they  _ didn’t  _ go into a Hedgebucks together. But Quentin hasn’t, in point of fact, read Eliot’s book, and that’s feeling like more of a mistake every day of this tour, actually. 

Every time Eliot breezes through some line at a reading that kicks Quentin in the gut so hard it leaves him gasping for air. 

Every time Quentin catches Eliot talking low and somber-eyed in a corner with some kid that comes up to him after an event, like the pale-haired student from yesterday evening with the pink-white-blue button on her bag, who had introduced herself as Fray, and who threw her arms around Eliot, to his evident surprise, after he said something apparently more meaningful to her than the  _ characters have-- lots of character traits, I guess _ that he’d managed for the class at large. 

Every time Quentin says “the Fool” like he’s talking about someone meaningfully different than himself and Eliot just raises that sardonic eyebrow, because Eliot  _ gets  _ it-- in ways that Quentin had been too self-righteous and too insecure to admit that someone who looks like Eliot and sounds like Eliot and just--  _ is  _ like Eliot,  _ could _ , the first time that they met. 

“Just go,” Quentin pretends to grumble, taking the leash carefully from Eliot, and letting Eliot see Quentin wrap it once, twice around his own hand, because-- because maybe Eliot’s  _ not _ really a diva who refuses to walk into Hedgebucks without his fashion-accessory dog. Maybe Eliot just finds it easier to  _ pretend _ to be a diva than to admit that he hates the thought of leaving this tough-but-tiny creature alone with strangers-- and maybe doesn’t much like to be left alone with strangers himself. 

“Get me--” Quentin starts to say, but Eliot cuts him off. 

“I know what you want, baby boy,” he smirks, making Quentin shiver once again, before he disappears inside the building. 

When Eliot comes back, High King Margo’s leash is still looped securely around Quentin’s wrist, but the dog herself is no longer on the sidewalk. Instead, she’s in Quentin’s arms, tucked against his chest inside the boxy old coat. She’s been nosing suspiciously at a loose button for the last few minutes, but she hasn’t demanded to be put down yet.

Quentin’s only defense for how this happened, other than Margo’s shamelessly manipulative streak, is that the snow is getting steadier and the sidewalk’s getting slushier, and that has to be cold on bare paws, doesn’t it? It’s uncomfortable enough on Quentin’s wet sneakers.

When Eliot steps through the door and sees them, Margo’s face poking out between the fisted-together flaps of Quentin’s coat, he comes to a complete stop-- sudden enough that the two women walking behind him narrowly avoid spilling coffee down the back of his fancy coat. 

He approaches them slowly, like Quentin has an explosive strapped to his chest, instead of the dog that Eliot adores. 

“ _ Bambi _ ,” he says, drawing the word out to match his footsteps, “what have we discussed about  _ imperio _ -ing cute boys to do your will?”

Quentin can feel the cocky little lift of his own smile, knows it’s partly there because of the  _ way  _ Eliot’s looking at him, like Eliot’s been struck by lightning and doesn’t care all that much, rather than anything Eliot’s actually saying. He doesn’t break eye contact with Eliot as he bends down to whisper in the direction of one of High King Margo’s perky ears, “So he  _ has  _ read  _ some  _ fantasy novels.” 

The staticky tension dissipates with the smile that splits Eliot’s face, and he finishes crossing the remaining distance between them at his usual brisk pace. “I’ll  _ show  _ you fantasy,” he mutters, with a playful tug to the hair at the back of Quentin’s scalp that makes Quentin’s little smirk stretch into a wide, free smile, even as the move angles Quentin’s head back and exposes more of his neck to the biting cold. 

What Eliot  _ actually  _ shows him, when they make it through the snow back to Eliot’s hotel room, is the Hallmark Channel, which Eliot insists on watching on their free afternoons, despite the obvious shortcomings in the scripted dialogue, because he maintains that “The words aren’t  _ important _ , Quentin,” while Quentin shoots back, “I’m sorry, I thought you were  _ literally  _ a writer.” 

This is their tradition, now-- or it has been for the last week. Watching crappy television (to Quentin; Eliot maintains it’s some kind of platonic ideal of the form) while sitting against the piles of too-soft hotel pillows, giving each other shit while they sip their tea and--  _ whatever _ Eliot has ordered-- with High King Margo zonked out between them. These precious couple hours are the only part of the day that Quentin feels like he can drop his bag with the laptop on the floor by the door and just-- not  _ think  _ about it for a while, and Eliot seems to know that. The only difference today is that Margo has chosen to reward Quentin’s earlier show of chivalry by rolling onto her back and allowing him to pet the royal belly for a change. 

“You must be highly favored,” Eliot muses quietly, as he settles in on Margo’s far side, and watches Quentin rub in gentle little circles, careful not to tangle the shorter fur on her tummy. “Not everyone is allowed to see the soft underbelly, you know.”

When Quentin looks up from Margo to meet Eliot’s eyes, he has a hard time looking away. As usual, Eliot helps him out-- this time by dropping back against his stack of pillows, and folding his elegant hands across his chest, eyes firm on the white pebbled ceiling. 

“So you never finished telling me what happened with your  _ college sweetheart _ ,” he says after a moment, eyes still fixed straight above him.

That’s a whole novel (two, actually) ( _ three _ , actually actually), with chapters that run the gamut from  _ we were never all that comfortable together  _ to  _ she didn’t really want to be held back dating a guy with occasionally debilitating depression  _ to  _ in all fairness, I did cheat on her, like, a couple times _ . 

Quentin comes to rest on his side, one hand covering Margo’s puppy belly, his cheek pressing into the top pillow. This must be the side Eliot slept on last night, he thinks, because it smells like the same spicy cologne as the purple scarf. 

Eventually Quentin just shrugs against the bedspread. “It’s like you said earlier. She didn’t want to be anyone’s girlfriend. At least, she didn’t want to be  _ mine _ .”

A lot of times when Quentin has explained what happened with Alice, well-intentioned people, like his dad, or like Julia, say something like  _ she’s crazy not to want you  _ or  _ she’s missing out _ . And while Quentin can appreciate what they’re trying to do in theory, he’s spent sort of a lot of time with his therapist trying to learn to stop thinking that, like, he and Alice were meant to be and Alice just didn’t  _ get  _ it. So he’s grateful when Eliot doesn’t say any of that. 

Instead, Eliot just turns back to face Quentin ( _ at last _ ), and reaches out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind the same ear that he’d tried to protect from the cold earlier. 

“I bet you’re a really sweet boyfriend,” Eliot murmurs, as his thumb sweeps back and forth over the shell. 

Quentin tries not to think of the faraway note in Eliot’s voice as anything like  _ longing _ . Or to connect his words to the sugary coffees that he drinks like he  _ needs  _ them, even though plain black espresso would be way more in keeping with his whole, above-it-all aesthetic.

What Quentin  _ does  _ do is keep petting High King Margo’s exposed belly. And when a commercial break comes and Eliot can bear to tear himself away from the saga of whether the real-estate developer who always  _ really  _ wanted to be a chef is going to foreclose on the mountain lodge that the square-jawed photographer inherited from his favorite aunt, Quentin waits to hear the click of the door, then quietly slides off the bed. Guessing correctly that some combination of his demonstrated obeisance and her ingrained love for Eliot will buy High King Margo’s silence, he pads over to the pile of pre-signed copies of  _ Dicks, Daddy Issues, Dragons  _ on the tiny hotel desk, and sneaks one into his messenger bag, where its magenta-Helvetica cover can keep his poor, miserable draft company. 

If any more unflattering videos go up from he and Eliot’s event at the bookstore later that night (which they inevitably must), Quentin doesn’t notice. Because Quentin starts reading Eliot’s book as soon as they check into the hotel that Eliot drives them to after their event finally ends.

He doesn’t stop reading until morning. 


	4. Four

*** * * * ***

**Four**

*** * * * ***

**To:** e.waugh @ brakebillspress.com

**From:** fen-in-the-city @ gmail.com

**Re:** Re: re: re: Your book changed my life

Jan. 15, 2020 10:47PM

* * *

Oh my gosh, I just-- I’m sorry, I’m rambling again, I just  _ really  _ can’t believe you took the time to respond to my email  _ again _ !! Like I said in the first message I wrote to you, I’m just so, so grateful that I was assigned to work the night that you and Mr. Coldwater did your reading, because otherwise I might never have found your book and it just means so much to me, you know? I feel like my whole life, my family’s expected me to eventually have a certain kind of relationship but I don’t think I want that kind of relationship actually and it’s just so amazing to hear from someone who gets that and who writes about it the way you do!!!!

Like I said before, if you are ever in the Fifth Avenue Popper & Noble again, I volunteer to watch High King Margo for you anytime. It’s the least I can do. Also she is so cute! . . . 

*****

Eliot is waiting in the wings to make his entrance. And how many times had he hoped, back when he was dodging his father and trying to figure out the probability of dying in a ditch if he said fuck it all and tried to hitchhike into Fort Wayne, that those words would be true some day? 

The context is a little different than he’d envisioned, obviously. He’d been thinking more Great White Way, less lecture hall. But the reality is at least a little bit gratifying, all the same. It would be more so if the whole set-up of tonight’s event wasn’t coming perilously close to replicating the recurring nightmare where his old freshman comp professor reads his failing final essay to the entire class-- only this time it’s not Eliot’s mostly plagiarized bullshitting on Steinbeck that he strung together while he was high out of his mind that’s being trotted out for communal judgment, but Eliot’s whole fucking  _ soul _ .

The gratification and terror counts _ both _ tick upward when Quentin, who’s already seated in one of the armchairs that have been set up for them on the proscenium stage at the front of the hall, looks over at Eliot. Q raises his dark eyebrows in amusement at the effusive language the professor who’s moderating the event is using to describe Eliot’s allegedly “tour de force debut.” Eliot gives him a stern  _ eyes-front _ gesture that only makes Quentin’s face crease into more of those little smile lines that Eliot regards  _ far  _ too fondly. 

It’s like the boy doesn’t realize that all the seemingly serious-minded English majors clogging the auditorium with their big hipster glasses and chunky bangs keep snapping pictures from behind their Jane Austen iphone cases _with the express purpose of posting them on tumblr_. Dear Q will be genuinely _confused_ when Eliot starts reading the hashtags from the posts that Julia forwards out loud over breakfast tomorrow-- which Eliot _will_ do, both because Q’s befuddled blush is sweeter by far than any of the shrink-wrapped pastries their hotel serves, and because it’s as good an escape valve as any, Eliot has found, to actually _say_ that Quentin has lovely dimples and lives in a constant state of sex-hair and his hands should be _illegal_ , while attributing the sentiment to someone else. It’s like a double-fortified version of Eliot’s preferred form of lying, safer even than _saying it_ like it doesn’t matter: _repeating it_ like it doesn’t matter. 

(Eliot will  _ also  _ dramatically recite the hashtags on the pictures of  _ him _ , of course, because he  _ does  _ have a brand to maintain. He’ll spend most of the morning trying to figure out an acceptable reading of the fact that Quentin-- who as near as Eliot can tell, cannot lie to save his life-- never looks surprised at  _ those  _ tags, just rolls his eyes and says,  _ well, yeah, obviously _ .)

The moderator-professor--  _ Pearl Sunderland, Chair of the English Department _ , she’d introduced herself-- says Eliot’s name and people clap (not as long or as loud as they did for Quentin, but Eliot would never expect otherwise), which means it’s go time, so Eliot makes the most of it. And  _ this  _ part of these events-- adjusting his tie just so and sauntering across the stage with just the right mixture of catwalk and slouch, his hair at peak post-Queer-Eye-Ross-Poldark--  _ this  _ he can do. The thought puts a little extra,  _ suck it, Henry, I’m excelling  _ spring in his step-- which he needs, honestly, to keep his fingers from shaking the way they want to.

When Eliot makes it to the chair, he gives a bow to the crowd and an air-cheek-kiss to Sunderland, before folding himself elegantly into the chair and picking up the handheld microphone on the little table at his side. His knuckles brush the glass of water someone has left there for him, and he begins his own personal mental countdown to the point in the evening when  _ Q’s  _ glass inevitably ends up overturned in his lap. 

Something of the thought must make its way into the grin that Eliot shoots Quentin’s way, over the lip of his own glass. Q answers with a fond eye roll that is somehow more devastating than the purely dismissive model he had wielded so effectively at the start of the tour,  _ before  _ they started sharing meals and car rides and picturesque snow-covered walks that are wreaking havoc on Eliot’s--  _ everything _ . 

“Mr.  _ Coldwater _ ,” Eliot all but purrs into the microphone, once he’s put the glass back down, knowing that Q will hear the emphasis. 

He does, and it makes those big brown eyes roll again.

“Mr.  _ Waugh _ ,” he drawls back, his tone choreographing how dumb he thinks the affect is, but going along anyway just to prove that he can give back whatever he gets. Which-- of course he does. Q is a wounded little woodland creature in so many ways, but he’s also stubborn as  _ fuck _ , __ Eliot has learned, and the combination makes him just so easy to work up, honestly. He responds again and again.

Which implies, of course, that Eliot keeps giving him something to respond  _ to _ , again and again. Which Eliot most certainly is. Because the truth is, Eliot is about as weak for Quentin’s potent mix of  _ fight me _ and  _ keep me safe, daddy _ as Quentin is for Eliot’s persistent vain assholery. 

Usually, Eliot makes a practice of not thinking about that fact, or its--  _ hm _ , broader applications-- even as Eliot plucks at Quentin’s strings over and over. But right now, the sharp bite of fear (and something else) at just how simple it would be to make Quentin  _ really  _ sing for him, is taking the edge off of Eliot’s low-grade dread that this professor in her smart sheath dress is about to look over the edge of her horn-rim glasses and see the cheap flannel and the cigarette burns and the long-faded hickeys that Eliot accepted in exchange for a few minutes of human affection hiding beneath his consignment-store cashmere cardigan, and that she’ll show all these other assembled bright young things, as well. 

Quentin chokes on a sputtering cough then, and of course he does it directly into his microphone. The halting apology that follows is juxtaposed over Eliot’s visions of the crowd of well-scrubbed students gawking at the monster inside Eliot, melting and reshaping them into an image of just  _ Q  _ gawking. Somehow, that latter image scares Eliot more, and Eliot’s not sure whether that’s because of the sinking suspicion that, unless Eliot can get a fucking grip and  _ soon _ , they’re hurtling toward a point where Q’s derision would end up hurting worse than anything Eliot’s father ever did to him. Or whether it’s because the vision forces Eliot to confront the fact that he’s already nursing a tiny, idiotic  _ hope  _ that Quentin would never look at Eliot the way his family did, even if Q  _ knew _ .

(That’s the  _ real  _ truth, by the by. The hard truth. The one that Eliot’s not sure even  _ he _ could say like it doesn’t mean anything. That it’s not  _ just  _ Q’s stubbornness or the way he needs Eliot to take care of him that Eliot’s weak for. It’s that sometimes, when Quentin looks at Eliot with his whole face radiating  _ I worry about you _ , Eliot maybe, actually wants to let him.)

The pert, professional snap of Sunderland’s voice gets Eliot out of his own head-- and thank  _ God _ .

“Mr. Coldwater,” she begins, clearly enjoying her moment of petty power, sounding like she’ll spring a pop quiz at any moment, “I thought we might start with the way that your books play with the typical structure of the bildungsroman by making the questing protagonist a woman.”

And with that they are, in the words of the immortal Ms. Del Rey, off to the races. The questioning is worse than Eliot imagined in some ways, and a lot better in others. Better in that Pearl Sunderland, Department Chair, is obviously not about to ask anything so plebeian as what Eliot was  _ feeling _ when he wrote XXX, Y, or Z scene, or when Quentin is going to finish his next book (or, God help them all, when Eliot is going to  _ start  _ his next book). Worse in that Eliot  _ definitely _ got Sunderland’s measure right, and every question she asks is designed to test whoever’s listening on some finer point of literary theory and/or three or four “seminal” fantasy works that never found their way into the trashy paperbacks and scattered Tortured Gay Classics that make up Eliot’s personal canon.

Eliot can take her heat just fine, of course. He manages to toss out the phrase “failed out” early and often, working the young-Fitzgerald angle as hard as he can. That gives him a free pass to play dumb about Sunderland’s SAT-words, unless it suits his purposes to engage. He’s happy to talk about queer theory-- and, of course, that’s mostly where her questions to Eliot go-- but he peppers enough naughty humor into his answers to keep up the veneer that he’s just a simple hedonist speaking his truth, and any traces of Foucault in his responses are purely accidental. 

Q, Columbia boy that he is, does even better under Sunderland’s scrutiny. He’s at his most comfortable like this, really, when he can ramble to his little heart’s content about authors  _ other  _ than himself and pretend that he’s not preening a little at the way Sunderland nods along to his answers. (Eliot can’t be certain, but he has an ever-growing suspicion that the mother who never seems to make an appearance in Q’s winding childhood anecdotes has a lot to answer for, when it comes to Q’s frankly exhausting commitment to seeking approval from withholding women.) Eliot also likes to think that-- well, that it doesn’t  _ not  _ contribute to Quentin’s unusually relaxed state, that their chairs are angled so that they’re sitting across from each other, with Sunderland in the middle, and Quentin can  _ see  _ Eliot pretending that the way he’s hanging on every twitch of Quentin’s chatty hands is all for show. 

Eliot’s distracted enough by drinking Q in and acting like it doesn’t matter, that he realizes too late that Quentin with his guard down poses a danger not just to Eliot’s pretenses, but also to Quentin himself. 

Sunderland’s just asked Quentin something about  _ Great Expectations  _ and alternate endings and “audience discomfort with a heterosexual male protagonist’s desires going unfulfilled in modified Proppian hero narratives” that Eliot gathers boils down to, “tell the mouthbreathers on the internet why they’re wrong that Vix has secret fee-fees for the Fool.” Quentin’s practically out of his chair with excitement at the prospect, the leg that’s not half-tucked under his ass bouncing in time with the waggling of his fingers, which are up by his ears for reasons that Eliot can’t intuit. 

What Eliot  _ can  _ intuit is that Quentin’s fervor for this particular topic has as much to do with Quentin and the ex that Eliot would bet the farm (or even something he  _ doesn’t  _ loathe) that Quentin is still half in love with, as it does with mighty Vix and the poor hapless fool that insists on playing the unwanted Pylades to her Orestes. 

Quentin hasn’t seemed to realize that, though. And that’s probably why it happens.

“. . . so, right, it’s like, when you actually go through the text, there’s no support for the idea that, uh, that Vix could-- that it’s like that, for her,  _ except from the Fool himself _ \--” Quentin leans even farther forward there, far enough that Eliot wants to reach out to break his fall-- “which, is another textual cue in itself, because the Fool is, you know, he can’t ever let himself see Vix how she really is--”

Sunderland brings a lily-white hand up to her chin then, and cuts in. “It’s interesting that you describe the Fool as persistently viewing Vix through the lens of his own desire, when so much of the academic discussion around the Fool is about the ways that he  _ subverts  _ traditional masculine archetypes. He recognizes Vix and the The Lady Tree’s superior combat and political skills without any apparent bitterness or regret. He happily takes on caretaking roles; he--”

_ He’s sweet _ , Eliot wants to cut in, but of course doesn’t.  _ He’s just so fucking sweet _ .

Quentin cuts Sunderland off instead, nodding too quickly as he says, “Well, yeah, he’s-- that’s true. But, um. Look.”

Eliot doesn’t think Quentin does it on purpose, doesn’t think he even realizes he’s doing it, but he hunches forward then, angling away from Sunderland, away from Eliot, and faces the crowd directly, his voice getting slower and more deliberate, even his constant hand gestures going broader and more decisive, like it’s so damn important to him that they all  _ understand  _ this. 

“The Fool knows that he’s not cut out to be a hero,” Quentin says flatly, puncturing something in the neighborhood of Eliot’s ribs. “But he’s-- we know, right? That he spent--  _ years  _ trapped in the Darkness, and the only thing that really, like, kept him company through all that were these stories _ about  _ heroes who, like, use their ingenuity and save the day and make the big sacrifices. And so I think there’s a big part of him that thinks that, like, being the hero is-- it’s the only thing that has value, in some ways. But he knows himself well enough to know that-- that’s not him. And it’s never going to be him, because-- because he’s not-- particularly powerful and he-- he doesn’t express himself well, and he’s clumsy, and-- and on top of all that, he never knows if the Darkness is going to come back for him or not.”

Quentin angles his forehead in a way that would make his long brown hair cover his face, if it wasn’t tied back into one of his messy little buns tonight. His shoulders curl farther forward, and Eliot can see the students in the stadium-style rows of the lecture hall and even Sunderland mirror the gesture unconsciously, leaning in like weary travellers at the fireside of a wandering bard. 

“So you have this character,” Quentin explains, “that knows he’ll never be the one thing he thinks is worth being. And-- and when that’s true, when you-- when you have to figure out-- what else you  _ can  _ be, and what comes  _ next _ , that’s-- It’s just,  _ really _ fucking hard. But when someone comes along who just,  _ is  _ all the things you thought you were supposed to be, it can be tempting to-- to say to yourself, well, if  _ she  _ loved me, if I were the thing that  _ she  _ needed, then I’d still sort of-- be doing that thing I always thought I was supposed to be doing, right? I’d be the hero, because I’d be  _ her  _ hero. And when she’s saying, yeah, no, I don’t need that, and I really don’t need it from  _ you _ , you just-- you ignore it. Or you rationalize it, or you-- you tell yourself that she’ll  _ see _ , one day, that  _ I _ \--”

Quentin clenched his eyes shut, somewhere in there. (It was when he said,  _ I’d be her hero _ . Eliot thinks he might see it-- the way Q’s long lashes fell, the way his eyebrows pulled in-- every time Eliot closes his own eyes from now on.) He opens them suddenly, and it’s like he’d forgotten where he is, who he’s talking to. Eliot watches as his eyes dart across the rapt faces in the crowd, his still-open jaw freezing into place.

Everything happens in slow motion, after that. Or in flashes-- the way it used to feel being high as a fucking kite, dancing under a strobe light, the world reduced to still shots that don’t connect at all. 

Sunderland’s eyebrow ticking up consideringly. 

Q’s silent _ um.  _

The pretty little redhead in the front row dabbing her eye. 

Sunderland’s mouth opening. 

Given that Eliot’s not, actually, high this time, he knows that he has seconds--  _ less  _ than seconds-- to  _ do  _ something to divert this situation. Knows equally that his usual methods are useless here. 

If he makes a joke, it will fall flat in the raw vulnerability of this spell that Quentin has cast.

If he waves his hand and demands a change of topic, Sunderland will probably ignore him, and it will only make it more clear that Quentin has wandered into something too personal and Eliot is trying to bail him out. 

If he sits here and pretends that none of this concerns him, he’ll be safe.  _ Quentin _ won’t: he’ll talk himself in circles, or Sunderland will go in for the kill, and he’ll end up saying even more than he wants or--  _ God _ , blacking out entirely. But what concern is that of Eliot’s, really? There’s never been an ounce of  _ true  _ selflessness in Eliot, after all-- the kind that requires more than just a few jokes or a scarf he doesn’t need. He’s never had the space to grow any, when the only fields he’s ever had that weren’t salted from birth are choking-full with all the cold, impenetrable mendacity he’s needed to cultivate to make it  _ through _ .

If Eliot  _ were  _ a selfless man, a  _ hero _ , there would be another option, of course. A person as skilled as Eliot in the art of directing people’s attention where  _ he _ wants it can’t be  _ unaware  _ of the concept of drawing fire, giving a bigger target. The mood in this room-- the mood Quentin has created-- won’t be satisfied until the assembly sees a naked heart beating outside its owner’s chest. It’s Quentin’s tender heart they’re expecting, but-- another would do. 

One more flash.

Quentin, this time. Sweet Q. 

He’s mortified and miserable and he turns his big, pleading eyes to  _ Eliot _ . 

_ And I thought he was dangerous when he  _ didn’t  _ trust me _ , Eliot thinks, as he lifts his microphone from where it’s been lying across his lap. It’s easier than thinking about what’s going to happen next. 

The freeze-frame feeling stops, suddenly, the film picking up to its usual speed. Sunderland’s already started her follow-up question to Quentin, but Eliot’s quicker. 

“I’m sorry, Professor,” he says-- and he’s detached enough from what he’s about to do that he can be pleased that he sounds genuinely gallant, if strained. “I find myself really struck by Mr. Coldwater’s description of the Fool’s motivations because--”

Eliot pauses and looks into Q’s eyes once more-- for sustenance perhaps. Thinks,  _ baby boy, you’ll make a brave man out of me yet _ , and goes for it. 

“-- because I think it’s so similar to-- to the way I felt when I wrote about Monster Boy and M.”

Sunderland pounces. “M, as in--”

“The man that Monster Boy-- that he falls in love with, once he reaches Far Away Kingdom,” Eliot answers. The words feel sticky on their way out of his throat, and he’s not convinced that his volume is where he wants it, but-- it’s happening. He’s doing this.

“This isn’t widely known, but I-- there’s-- much of Monster Boy’s story is-- based on experiences--” he stops to wet his lips, which are suddenly as dry as parchment. “-- in my own life. For example, I-- I based Monster Boy’s relationship with M on the first man that I-- that I fell for, once I was-- on my own,” Eliot says. He’s going for clear and even, but it’s probably coming out alien and halting. Less  _ this doesn’t matter _ and more  _ please just let me pretend it doesn’t _ . 

He swallows hard, and he almost wants to laugh at how much he must look like Quentin right now, fish-mouthed and raw-nerved, stumbling for words in front of a crowd. The comparison makes him look to Quentin, who’s watching him with an expression that Eliot can’t read at all, mostly because he’s afraid to try. Something about the way Quentin’s downturned eyes are so open, though, or the way he’s biting into the meat of his lower lip, loosens Eliot’s chest, just enough to coax more words out. He finds himself locking in on Q as he continues narrating, propelled along by each of Quentin’s little half-nods-- because it turns out Quentin’s not the only one who craves approval. 

“He wasn’t-- the man I knew wasn’t possessed by the Demon-Thingy, like M was, obviously,” Eliot says. 

_ No,  _ Mike had just been an unhappy man with a second life he was hoping Eliot wouldn’t find out about, who liked to relive his glory days by picking up younger guys at his alma mater’s library. 

“But-- I think that Monster Boy and I, we both ignored the warning signs because we wanted to believe that our transformation was a success. That we had turned ourselves into the kind of people who could-- That we weren’t-- crazy to think that someone could. Love us. Like that.”

The words, once they’re out of him, are supposed to feel  _ freeing  _ or some shit like that. That’s what all the Pollyanna proponents of honest emotional communication have led Eliot to believe, anyway. It just figures that  _ they _ ’re absolute goddamn liars, too. In reality, all Eliot feels when he’s let the words out is queasy all over-- and the sweet, anxious knot of Quentin’s sad eyebrows isn’t helping. 

_ Water _ , he thinks belatedly. That has to help with the dead-and-dried feeling inside his mouth, which rivals the morning after (or afternoon after) one of his old benders. He’s reaching for the glass, keeping it steady in his hand through the raw power of his will, while Sunderland nods thoughtfully, like Eliot didn’t just regurgitate his pitiful, rotted insides for her amusement. 

He’s forcing himself to prepare some kind of answer to the little speech she’s giving on “the pervasive theme of self-creation in queer takes on--” when another voice breaks in, the words tripping over each other like a dam breaking messy.

“I hated that chapter.  _ So  _ much.”

Eliot’s eyes shoot up from the water he’s only pretending to sip, to see Quentin, intent and wide-eyed and barely remembering that he’s supposed to be talking into his microphone. 

Sunderland looks over, too, and she’s clearly not happy with the interruption.

“Sorry,” Quentin stammers to her. Then looks back to Eliot and offers another, “Sorry,” as if Eliot gives a damn about the orderliness of this event, at this point. “I just-- it was awful. I mean--  _ no _ , it was beautiful. That’s what made it so awful. It was-- I just wanted him to be okay, but he wasn’t,  _ at all _ , but he kept insisting that he was, which was worse.” 

Quentin seems to remember himself, and he at least speaks into the microphone for the rest of what he has to say, even though his words are still chasing each other nearly too fast to be comprehensible.

“It reminded me of the first time I read-- in, in the  _ Wandering Dune _ , there’s this scene where the main character has to destroy the last thing her mother gave her, to save her life, and the book never  _ says _ that she’s upset about it, but you can just--  _ feel  _ it over the pages. I’d never considered before that a character could  _ say  _ one thing and yet the reader could know them well enough to realize they were feeling something else. And-- and that’s how you made me feel, all over again, after Monster Boy had to kill M.”

Eliot’s just-- gaping at Quentin, the glass of water still held against his lips. 

Quentin breathes out in a huff, a smile playing at the edges of his soft mouth, where the corners disappear into his five o’clock shadow. 

When he speaks again, it’s deliberate and coaxing. “I’m pretty sure this is the part where you call me out for being a Fillory nerd, again.” 

The crowd chuckles at that, but Quentin’s eyes hold onto Eliot without blinking, his eyebrows high and hopeful. Q bites his lip again, and Eliot realizes then that Q’s-- that he’s trying to play Eliot’s part  _ for  _ him. Inelegantly, yes. But he’s trying to tell the joke that lets them roll past this too-vulnerable moment back to equilibrium. Like he knows that that’s what Eliot’s been  _ trying  _ to do for him these past few weeks, and he wants to give some of that back  _ to  _ Eliot. 

Eliot could kiss him for it. 

But when Eliot makes himself set the glass of water on the table and pick the microphone back up, he’s surprised to find that he can’t quite muster a  _ bon mot _ \-- yet. Not until he asks, more open in its surprise than he wants it to be, “You read my book?”

Quentin’s eyebrows pull down again, a moment of guilt that Eliot can’t quite fathom. “Yeah,” he says gently, looking only at Eliot. Then he cuts his eyes over to Sunderland, and physically puffs out his chest, going into role, even tossing his head in an insulting approximation of Eliot’s trademark  _ look-at-me  _ gesture. It makes Eliot grin, wide and unvarnished, in spite of everything. 

“The reason he looks so surprised,” Quentin says around his own smile, which grows in time with Eliot’s, “is that he can’t be bothered to read  _ my  _ books.” 

That’s a lie-- although Quentin doesn’t realize it. In point of fact, Eliot bought a copy of both  _ Forty Circles  _ books the night after Quentin insulted him outside of a Hedgebucks, started reading the night their plane touched down in Portland. He’s still only about three-quarters of the way through the first one, partly because of that pesky undiagnosed ADD he’s always suspected his school district would have noticed if everyone in Pecksville hadn’t already written Eliot off as a congenital disappointment, but mostly because Eliot loves the Fool so  _ damned _ much that he can only bear to witness him struggling for a couple paragraphs at a time. 

Eliot’s own fool heart dreams for a moment of  _ saying _ that, but even after tonight’s performance, there are still limits to Eliot’s bravery-- hard ones, and anyway, Quentin’s clearly waiting for him to pick up his cue already, so Eliot affects his best pout and whines, “But they’re so  _ long _ .” 

The house laughs louder at that, and louder still when Quentin, not missing a beat says, “But you  _ did  _ say you’d be willing to watch them if someone made a TV version with plenty of bare boobs.”

Eliot sniffs and says, with great dignity, “I think we both know that when I said ‘full frontal’ I was not  _ remotely  _ considering boobs.” 

Quentin’s answering smile is brilliant.

They own the crowd after that, more or less, and Sunderland’s attempts to wrest back control from their bantering are only mildly successful. They run out the clock that way, Eliot homing in on Quentin’s teasing smile to block out the low-grade nausea that keeps resurging when his thoughts stray to the things he voluntarily revealed for the sake of that smile. 

Once the event has ended and hands have been shaken and High King Margo has been picked up from a clearly traumatized Professor Pickwick, whom Sunderland had enlisted to keep her company in a spare classroom during the event despite the man’s apparently paralyzing fear of all female creatures, Eliot expects Quentin to collapse back in on himself, drained, the way he usually does after a night of being ‘on’ for the crowd. But it turns out his commitment to playing the Eliot part extends past business hours, and he’s the one who packs Eliot into the back of a cab, giving the aggressively Bostonian driver the name of their hotel in Copley Square, while he carefully extricates Bambi from her travel bag so that she can lay her soft head in Eliot’s lap, where she looks up at him with tender reproach, like she knows he succumbed to foolish quasi-heroics tonight. 

Once they’re back at the hotel-- which is more cosmopolitan than most of the family-friendly outposts they’re usually booked into, despite the uninspiring breakfast selections-- Quentin ushers Eliot not to the elevator and their rooms, but to the bar, which is unironically called  _ Bacchus  _ and which has an esoteric aesthetic that regrettably makes use of both rubber grapes and gel lighting in the soft pinks and greens of glowsticks at a rave. 

“Q,” Eliot starts to protest, because for once in his life, he actually  _ wants  _ to curl up completely alone instead of losing himself in a crowd-- not that there’s much of one in  _ Bacchus _ , just the too-perky bartender in a wrap dress whose nametag reads “Shoshana.” 

But Quentin stops him with a hand on his shoulder, which he can only reach comfortably because he’s already guided Eliot onto a stool at the far end of the bar, where they can see out a long window to where the headlights and streetlights and building lights reveal a thick charcoal sky that looks ready to snow at any minute. 

“Just trust me on this,” Q says, as he pulls Eliot’s coat off, his own worn-out number already on the floor beneath Eliot’s stool, where he’d laid it out like a blanket for Bambi, daring anyone to tell him he couldn’t. “You think you want to hide in bed and try to forget this ever happened, but it’s a mistake. Especially when the videos start to go up.” 

“Videos?” Eliot asks. 

Quentin’s phone buzzes, nearly on cue.

Eliot can feel his whole face drop in only slightly exaggerated misery, and Quentin grimaces, reaching for the list of specials framed in plastic on the bartop in front of them. “Let’s-- order something, yeah?” 

If Eliot has ever needed proof that he’s  _ not  _ Monster Boy anymore-- not entirely, anyway-- it’s this moment, when a gorgeous boy that Eliot sees more often than not, when he closes his eyes and reaches for himself, offers to buy Eliot a drink, and Eliot places a hand on his wrist and says, “I don’t-- want to get drunk, okay?”

Q tenses immediately, all his borrowed confidence evaporating in a moment, as he fumbles to put down the drink menu. “Shit,” he says. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you-- we can--”

“No, it’s-- Q, it’s fine,” Eliot says, the hand still on Quentin’s wrist starting to soothe, automatically. “It’s not-- I’m fine to have one. I just-- try not to go too much harder than that. For the wrong reasons. Anymore,” he adds, a probably unnecessary afterthought. 

“The, uh, wrong reasons?” Q prompts, amused but not judging. 

“Oh, you know,” Eliot offers, finding his footing for his favorite type of lie, again, with Quentin’s skin under his fingers and Bambi scuffling at the floor below them, “short-term memory extraction,  _ long _ -term memory extraction, escaping the ever-looming specter of dying alone, finding a gray hair-- that sort of thing.”

“Mm,” Quentin hums. “And are there right reasons?”

Eliot feels his smile crook up on one side. “Other people’s birthday parties. New Year’s Eve. Bodyshots--”

“Naturally,” Quentin interjects. 

“Naturally,” he confirms. He looks down at the bar top, flicks away an imaginary crumb and adds, “my mother’s birthday. That one’s more in the ‘wrong reasons’ category, to be fair. But it gets special dispensation.”

When he can make himself look over at Q again, Quentin’s worrying the corner of a cocktail napkin between his thumb and forefinger. “So it _ is _ autobiographical, then,” he says, after a moment. 

Eliot does him the courtesy of not feigning ignorance, although the temptation is there. “Autobiographical enough,” he says, instead. 

“Meaning?”

“Well, spoilers-- I’m not actually telekinetic.” 

“ _ El _ ,” Quentin chides, gently. Eliot’s not close enough to enough people (human people) to have earned many nicknames. He likes this one that Q seems to have fallen into using, sometime in the last week or so. 

“Sorry,” Eliot offers back, running a hand over his forehead, smoothing over a few curls that seem to want to come askew. “It’s-- more or less me, ages 16 through 23, with the thinnest of fantasy veneers, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

Quentin just snorts at that, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. “How did the fantasy setting happen anyway? I’ve kind of-- gotten the memo that it’s not your usual jam.” 

A stray memory crosses Eliot’s mind, of hiding in a pink-wall-papered bathroom with a little dog-earred mess of a book, thinking of sand demons and high kings and anywhere his father wasn’t. He pushes it on its way. 

“Honestly?”

Quentin nods. Eliot wonders, as he often does, whether it even occurs to Quentin, to want anything other than the honest truth. 

“I got shitfaced the night before I sent out the manuscript and added a whole bunch of dragons ‘cause I thought that would make it less obvious that I was writing about myself.” 

Quentin’s jaw drops open and he just stares at Eliot for a moment, before he’s snorting out his incredulous laughter. 

“ _ Excuse you _ ,” Eliot complains, poking hard at Quentin’s folded forearms through the sleeves of his soft green sweater. 

“Sorry,” he says, not sounding particularly regretful, the little brat. “I just-- you thought that made it  _ less  _ obvious?”

“Did I not mention the part where I was shitfaced?”

“I guess ‘not for the wrong reasons’ is an aspirational thing, then?” 

Quentin really is a dick sometimes, and Eliot can’t help but like it-- the uncharacteristic confidence when he’s giving Eliot shit, and the way he doesn’t seem to think, even after having read Eliot’s literal life story, that kid gloves are in order. 

“I’m a work in progress,” Eliot concedes, grinning easily. 

Quentin smiles back-- loose and heartstopping. “It-- it really is beautiful,” he says after a moment, echoing Eliot’s thoughts so completely that it takes a moment for Eliot to register that he’s talking about the book. 

_ Eliot _ ’s book. 

Eliot-- doesn’t half know what he wants to do with that information, but his hand still hasn’t left Quentin’s wrist, so he slides it down, flattening the palm over the strong, broad back of Quentin’s, until it almost feels like holding hands. He watches the splay of his long, pale fingers over Quentin’s, the way that Quentin stretches his grip so that their fingers interlace, back to front.

Eliot’s afraid to know what his face looks like when he finally raises it to meet Quentin’s, but whatever his eyes are saying, Quentin doesn’t flinch away. 

“You boys decide want you want?”

The bartender’s cheery voice breaks the moment-- Eliot will either thank her or curse her for it later. For now, he reaches out to peruse the list of specials, letting his eyes wander up and down, half paying attention, until--

“Oh, just order it,” Quentin grumbles beside him. “You know you want to.”

Eliot  _ does  _ want to. It’s a happy coincidence that he also wants to make Q roll his eyes in affectionate consternation. 

“I’ll have the Boozy Candy Cane Irish coffee,” he announces grandly, and--  _ yes _ , there it is. Quentin’s eyes go ‘round, as he fights back the little grin his mouth is just dying to make. 

“I’ll have a whiskey neat,” Quentin says drily a moment later, and Eliot knows he’s just doing it to be a--

“ _ Snob _ ,” he accuses. “You absolute killjoy.” 

Quentin opens his mouth for a retort, but his cell phone buzzes against the bartop again, three times in quick succession. 

Reality crashes back into Eliot, and his stomach acids follow suit.

Quentin is staring guiltily at the phone out of the corner of his eye and eventually Eliot just sighs, bringing his hand unobtrusively back to his own lap. 

“No use delaying the inevitable, I suppose,” he says, with more practicality than he feels. “What are they saying?”

Quentin’s hand twitches without the weight of Eliot’s own to blanket it, but he reaches for the phone all the same, thumbing through the messages in silence, pressing links and scrolling, his eyebrows drawing closer together as he does. 

“Well?” Eliot prods.

Quentin opens his mouth then closes it. He tries again, but Eliot intervenes.

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” he snaps. And then, when Quentin’s brow shadows at the harsh words, he huffs out a little breath and makes himself smile and add more gently, “I have the Boozy Candy Cane for that, after all, don’t I?”

Quentin dips his head in acknowledgment of the unspoken apology, and brings a hand up to tuck the strands that always seem to fall loose from his bun behind his ear. “Well,” he says, “there’s a cell phone video already of-- of what you said about, um-- about you and Monster Boy. The comments are generally-- really positive, actually. They--”

Q pauses, doing Eliot’s gut no favors, while Shoshana the bartender brings over their drinks. 

“These are on the house, by the way,” she says, before dropping some seriously intense eye contact on Q and declaring, “I.  _ Worship _ . Lady Tree.”

“Oh, okay, um. Thank-- thank you,” Q manages, mostly to Shoshana’s retreating back. 

Eliot waits until the bartender is at the other end of the bar before he slides his eyes over to Quentin and makes himself say, “You know, I think if you were interested, you might be able to get more than a drink on the house.”

When Quentin looks back, confused, Eliot raises his eyebrows for good measure. Because it doesn’t hurt to forcibly remind himself that Quentin is free to do whatever he wants with cute, borderline-sycophantic bartenders, just like he’s free to do whatever he wants with the admirable, heroic ex he’s still clearly hung up on. 

(Because it  _ does  _ hurt. Which is why Eliot needs the reminder.)

Quentin just looks at Eliot assessingly for a moment that stretches too long, before shaking his head and turning his attention to his whiskey. “I’m, um-- I’m trying not to do  _ that  _ for the wrong reasons anymore,” he says, repeating Eliot’s rationale from earlier. 

It’s Eliot’s turn to stare consideringly, then, wondering whether it’s Eliot’s or Quentin’s own feelings that Quentin is trying to spare by not simply  _ saying _ he’s trying to no longer fuck away the memory of Mighty Vix. He can’t imagine it’s unclear to Eliot where his heart is still lodged-- not after his little monologue tonight. As much as that reality makes a ridiculous part of Eliot want to do something almost akin to crying, it stirs a much larger part of Eliot to-- admiration? or is it envy? or perhaps just revulsion?-- for Q’s capacity to want so transparently. To approach every damn thing with that storybook bravery. 

Quentin allows Eliot’s scrutiny for a moment, then hides his face in his phone again.

“Anyway,” he says, clearing his throat and flicking through a couple open screens. “Um, people generally are saying that you were-- really brave to say what you said. You  _ were _ ,” he adds, looking up, when Eliot leans forward to groan.

Eliot doesn’t  _ want  _ to be brave, is the problem, not like Quentin so clearly does-- notwithstanding the mad instinct to rush into danger that he felt when Quentin’s trusting eyes were on him. At least, he doesn’t want to be brave more than he wants to be  _ safe _ . 

Because, yes, it does-- Christ, it _matters_ to him, more than he can say, when kids email him to tell him that Monster Boy makes them feel seen, or like maybe they can get out of whatever hellhole they’re stuck in, too, someday. And he does feel a responsibility to tell those kids, when they reach out, that he has no fucking clue if it ever gets _better_ , but at least they’re not _alone_ here. But he can’t-- he still wants the wider _world_ to see him the way _he_ tells it to see him. Which isn’t _brave_ or _merciful_ , or any of those other things that imply by their very existence that there are things out there that can and have hurt him. Eliot is fucking tired of hurting. What Eliot _wants_ is to be invulnerable and impeccable and _spectacular_ , even if that makes him a monster. And _fuck_ the part of him that keeps on whimpering that, no, actually, it just wants to be _seen_ and valued in all its bruised up, coked out, unloved glory.

“El?” Quentin is leaning in closer, and Eliot makes himself straighten up.  _ Spectacular _ .

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head briskly. “What else are they saying?”

Quentin watches from under those worried brows for a moment, and Eliot pushes down the urge to reach out with a fingertip and smooth the tight furrow away. “Um,” Quentin finally says, before going back to the phone. The tips of his ears go a little bit red as he reads and he reaches out for another swallow of his whiskey. The blush, and the bob of his Adam’s apple, make it easier for Eliot to unclench his shoulders, to  _ play  _ again.

“Uh oh,” he says, reaching forward for his own peppermint-stick-bedecked concoction, “must be getting thirsty in the hashtags again.” He punctuates the teasing statement with a slurp of the towering whipped cream on his--  _ fine _ , glorified milkshake, and adds, “Bright side: maybe the fact that you’re spending all your time with such a widely regarded smokeshow will make your ex jealous. Get her re-evaluating her choices.”

Eliot’s smile is just barely brittle by the time he reaches the last word. 

Quentin, on the other hand, is frowning. “Who, Alice?” he asks. “El, I’m not-- “

_ Sure you’re not _ , Eliot just barely has time to think, before Quentin is shaking his head and cutting himself off. “Anyway, um. I don’t think she’d really-- think that we, um--”

Eliot tries not to be (visibly) offended, but he does them both the mercy of cutting in before Quentin finds his way to saying that Eliot’s not a threat to Quentin’s great lost love. “Because I’m a guy?” he offers, his voice soothing rather than accusing, giving Quentin the out.

But Quentin, who really does have much more of a talent for getting into situations than out of them, snorts. “Yeah, no-- that part wouldn’t surprise her.” 

Which is not--  _ entirely  _ news to Eliot, at this point. But intriguing nonetheless. 

“She, um. She used to say that I only ever wanted people who were a little bit mean to me,” Quentin explains, looking away from Eliot, suddenly. He taps one thumb against side of the phone that’s still in his hand, the other against the coaster under his still mostly full rocks glass. “So. Not you,” he adds. “I mean. She wouldn’t guess you.”

Quentin glances at Eliot out of the side of his eye when he finishes, and he just looks so  _ vulnerable.  _ Eliot will never understand how Q manages it. He’s got a nose that could rival Eliot’s own for sheer volume of facial real estate, and those caterpillar eyebrows, and firm lips, and he’s virtually never completely clean-shaven. And yet for all those classically masculine features, there’s still a lost-little-boy something that shines out through his eyes, that’s so palpably nervous that  _ Eliot _ , of all people, will judge him for getting off on being made to feel small and insignificant.

“Noted,” Eliot says gently. Then, when the moment has subsided, he gives a mock-glare and says, “Now quit trying to distract me from whatever it was you read online that made you blush like a schoolgirl.” 

Quentin laughs, but it’s a touch strangled. “So, uh,” he says, looking down at his phone once again, “they-- people are also saying you were, um, that it was nice of you to-- to rescue me, like you did.” 

Quentin shifts on his stool, and Eliot nods. 

“And what did they really say?”

Quentin gives him that pissy bitch look again, before reciting, “ _ If someone straight-up rode in on their white horse to save me like EW did for QC tonight, I would have no choice but to swoon into his arms, I’m just saying. _ ”

Eliot laughs at that, loud enough that Bambi, who had finally balled Quentin’s coat up into a form that pleased her, stands up and begins pacing under the stool in little circles again. Eliot pats her gently with the toe of his shoe to let her know everything is okay, even as he shoots a smug look at Quentin. 

“Well,  _ now _ I just feel that my efforts have gone underappreciated,” he sighs, stirring the peppermint stick through his Boozy Candy Cane with an air of great dissatisfaction. “I don’t recall any swooning at all.” 

It’s hard to keep up the mask of ennui when Quentin sets his jaw and gives him that look. “I will  _ show _ you where you can put your swooning,” he threatens.    
  
“Hm. In my arms, is what I heard,” Eliot returns with a smile he can’t tamp down, extending one of the arms in question gracefully to the side. “Come at me, Coldwater.” 

Q looks like he’s deciding his next move for a beat that Eliot’s pulse frankly doesn’t know what to do with. He finally settles on shaking his head and retreating back to the safety of the phone. 

Eliot doesn’t allow himself to feel disappointed by that choice.

“I’m not even going to  _ tell  _ you how many reblogs that comment already has,” Quentin says drily, as he continues to fuss at his phone screen. “That’s not something your ego needs.”

“You wound me.”

“ _ Nothing  _ can wound your ego, that’s the--  _ oh _ , another reblog, seriously?” Quentin says. “Jesus. This one adds a comment, too. ‘ _ Going by _ \--’ oh.” 

Quentin stops abruptly in the middle of the read-aloud-- so quickly, Eliot can almost feel the pile-up as the words that were still to follow screech to a halt in the suddenly closed tunnel. Quentin glances over at Eliot, his gaze revealing nothing, which is a skill Eliot didn’t know Quentin possessed. He clears his throat and then starts again, with no inflection Eliot can parse.

“‘ _ Going by the look on QC’s face when EW stepped in _ ,’” he reads, “‘ _ he’d do a lot more in EW’s arms than swoon there _ .’” 

The phone vibrates in Quentin’s hand again, before either of them can find anything to  _ say  _ in response to Quentin’s recitation. 

Quentin presses the screen with his thumb again. He clearly reads what’s on the screen, but doesn’t relay it. Doesn’t speak at all. 

Eliot’s throat is suddenly as dry as it was after he tore himself open in the auditorium earlier, his heartbeat loud and sluggish in his ears. It takes effort-- which feels right somehow, it  _ should  _ take effort-- for him to rasp out, “What-- what does that one say?”

Quentin looks up from the screen and their eyes lock. When Quentin reads this time, it’s from memory. “‘ _ Going by the look on EW’s face _ ,’” Quentin says, “‘ _ he wants him to _ .’”

Quentin’s deep brown eyes don’t blink. By this point in their-- their friendship, Eliot has had to revisit his initial assumption that Quentin was tragically straight. There’s the fact that Quentin’s ex apparently wouldn’t be surprised by Quentin taking up with a man, for one. But also, before that, just-- little things he’s said here and there. The frequent and loving descriptions of the male form in  _ Forty Circles _ . The way he sometimes looks at Eliot. 

None of that compares to the way he’s looking at Eliot now. 

Eliot can  _ feel  _ it in the air, as easily he could feel the snow coming if he stepped outside, that this is a  _ moment _ , where it could go either way. If Eliot pulls back right now, like he should, Quentin will let this moment be a joke, say something about how crazy people get on the internet, take this heat that’s waiting to spark into light between them-- for a night or two, anyway-- and snuff it out instead. If Eliot leans in, though, and claims what’s not his-- 

If Eliot leans in--

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Eliot whispers quietly, dropping his head to look at his hands clawing into the bartop.

Beside him, as predicted, Quentin leans away minutely, putting his phone back on the bar and pushing it away. 

“Let’s just-- let’s forget about all that, yeah? All they really mean is that-- that you did something really great tonight. And it. It means a lot to me, okay?” 

Eliot nods, still looking at his hands, hating himself a little, for the noble earnestness in Quentin’s voice. 

Quentin’s phone buzzes again then, and Eliot flinches without meaning to. Without  _ meaning  _ to. Eliot has spent twenty-odd years of his  _ life  _ learning to never do anything without  _ meaning  _ to.

Beside him Quentin fails badly at covering up a sigh, before he starts rustling through his pockets. From somewhere in the recesses of his Dockers, button down, or sweater, he manages to pull out a deck of playing cards.

“How about a distraction?” he asks, a hint of mischief on his face again. 

Eliot makes himself meet the lightness in Quentin’s tone. Because the only lie that matters is the lie that everything is  _ fine  _ here, that Eliot is affected by  _ none  _ of it.

“I can’t but help but feel that I’m about to be hustled,” he says with a lift of one eyebrow. 

He must succeed at the return to normalcy, because Quentin’s smile widens. “First of all, I could hustle the  _ shit  _ out of you,” he says.

“Saying that feels like a violation of the cardinal rule of hustling. Also, you have literally no poker face--”

“ _ But _ ,” Quentin continues over Eliot’s objection, “that’s not actually what I was suggesting.”

The self-assured-- Eliot’s tempted to call it  _ merriness  _ in Q’s tone is turning out to be rather infectious, and he doesn’t have to stretch for arch curiosity when he asks, “So what  _ are _ you suggesting?”

Quentin doesn’t answer, just smirks as he fans the deck across the bartop between them in a single, fluid gesture. “Pick a card, any card,” he says, eyes dancing. 

The sigh that Eliot heaves in response comes even more naturally. “And somehow we’re all talking about how  _ my  _ book is blatantly autobiographical?” 

Quentin’s smirk becomes a proper smile at that, which grows when Eliot indulges him by, in fact, picking a card. Eliot’s not nearly well versed enough (or interested enough) in card tricks or sleight-of-hand to assess the technical quality of Quentin’s work, but each trick he trots out works, and the competent, nearly cocksure movements of those  _ hands  _ are-- well, they’re going to haunt Eliot’s dreams tonight, and maybe for the rest of his life. 

By the time they’ve gotten through five or six tricks, Eliot’s cheeks nearly hurt from smiling at Q’s unexpected theatricality, his unabashed joy when he pulls the four of spades out from beneath some barware that Eliot would have sworn wasn’t even sitting there a moment ago. Even the occasional, sporadic buzzing of Quentin’s phone is beginning to fade into the background.

“Okay,” Quentin says after sweeping up the elaborate spread into which he fanned the cards before pulling out Eliot’s face-up three of hearts a moment before. “This one I think you’ll  _ really _ like.” 

It would work against Eliot’s other choices this evening to admit that it’s not the card tricks he likes, so he says nothing as he watches Quentin cut the deck a few more times, then, lightning-quick, divide it into four separate piles laid out in a cross shape, before stacking them up into one pile again just as quickly. He cuts the deck one more time before holding it out to Eliot, nodding to show that Eliot should take the one on top. 

Eliot does, and when he sees the card, he rolls his eyes, even as he rubs a finger softly over the dark blue backing. “Ha ha,” he says quietly. “Very cute.”

Quentin frowns at him. “That’s-- I haven’t started the trick part yet.” He cuts the deck a second and third time, then holds the cut deck out, so that Eliot can place his card back in the stack. 

And it’s-- it’s the stupidest thing. It’s idiotic, really. But Eliot brings the card in closer against his chest, covering up the blue backing with one hand like-- 

Like he doesn’t want to give it up.

Quentin’s frown deepens. “El?”

When Eliot doesn’t say anything, Quentin cracks a little smile, and says, “I promise I’ll give it back. That’s like-- the whole point of these tricks, if you haven’t figured that out.”

Q’s self-deprecating smile knocks Eliot out of--  _ whatever  _ came over him, and he smiles back, giving his head a little shake, wrinkling his forehead a little, as he puts the card face down on the stack. 

Quentin does his thing again after that, with the cutting and the stacking and the fancy flourishes, and even the schlocky ‘nothing up my sleeves’ bit. When he reaches the end of whatever ritual he’s performing, he reaches ostentatiously for the card on the very bottom of the pile, and flips it up so he can see it.

The accompanying line, Eliot is well aware at this point, is, “Is this your card?” Q’s said it each time, with the un-self-conscious gusto of a Las Vegas street magician who dreams of making it inside the casino doors. 

This time, when he says it, it’s soft and confused. A real question.

He’s staring at the joker with his little fool’s hat-- the card that Eliot didn’t want to give up-- so intently, that he doesn’t even notice that Eliot is nodding his answer. So Eliot does the only thing that there _ is  _ to do, in these circumstances, and for the second time tonight, tells the  _ truth _ \-- until Vix or Alice or whoever she is with the better claim than Eliot comes along to slay the monster and make it  _ un _ true.

“Yeah,” he says softly. “He’s mine.”

Q’s head shoots up, then, and Eliot only has a moment, while Q’s nakedly yearning face is framed by the open window, to register that the clouds outside aren’t just threatening anymore, they’re already snowing, before cards and glassware are both being shoved aside and Quentin’s sweet, desperate mouth is on his, and on his, and on his. 


	5. Five

*** * * * ***

**Five**

*** * * * ***

**To:** h.fogg @ brakebillspress.com

 **From:** j.chatwin @ brakebillspress.com

 **Re:** Any word from yours??

Jan. 17, 2020 2:16AM

* * *

Still no check-in at their hotel in Syracuse. 

So help me, if you point out one more time that the joint tour was _my_ idea, I’m sending you out in this storm on the back of a Saint Bernard to search for proof of bloody life. And I’ll send _Todd_ with you . . .

*****

Okay. So Quentin _hates_ hotel pillows. _That_ ’s what’s going on here.

Hotel pillows are too soft, and too deflated, and the fact that there are always a million of them somehow only makes the soft, deflated-ness of each individual pillow more noticeable. 

To prove that he’s right, and that he’s just-- _really_ focused on this pillow situation, Quentin prods once, ineffectually, at the top shitty-flat-cotton-pancake on his pile of shitty-flat-cotton-pancakes. And-- _yeah_ , look at that. It’s like he can feel the divots in the mattress against his knuckles, all the way through the stack, like he’s the Princess and the Pea or some shit like that. Royalty, bitches. 

A royal fucking idiot, maybe.

He turns and flops down onto his other side, letting his shoulder fall into the depression ( _Christ_ ) that his fist left in the pile, so that he’s facing the window now. He’s hoping that will be an improvement over facing the nightstand, with its judgmental digital clock and the even more judgmental clump of used tissues illuminated by the clock’s red glow. Unfortunately, it turns out the window’s not super sympathetic, either, with all the pre-dawn light it’s letting seep through the crack between the heavy panel curtains, reminding him of how long he’s been tossing and turning and just fucking-- _remembering_. 

He thinks about reaching for his phone, but that can only go poorly because his options are basically: (1) text Julia, which is not okay because it’s not even the crack of dawn and Julia’s supposed to be on MSNBC tonight trying to win an _election_ for Christ’s sake and she doesn’t have time for Quentin’s bullshit, and the sonic force of her laughter would, like, actually _flay him alive_ if she knew, anyway; (2) watch unflattering videos of himself on a loop, but, honestly, he kind of got his fill of that at 2AM; or (3) the only thing he’d _actually_ end up doing if he picked up his phone, which is scroll through tumblr posts (in his browser because he’s kidding himself and hasn’t just downloaded the app), staring at Eliot’s heart-eyes and pretending that he’s not pretending that they _mean_ something.

He lets out a huff and pushes himself onto his back, like his thoughts won’t follow him there. Then sure enough it’s onto his other shoulder again, and back to the electric glow of the blinking red numbers. 

_5:02AM_.

Two minutes since the last time he checked.

Four hours and change since he made himself lie down under the floral bedspread and pretend like he was actually going to sleep tonight.

Four hours and a little _more_ change since--

\--since he fucking kissed Eliot fucking Waugh like an absolute goddamned _fool_. 

He hasn’t forgotten that fact. _Jesus_ , he hasn’t forgotten it. But it’s a jolt every time he thinks about it, all the same.

_Christ, tumblr was actually right_ , he remembers thinking, the split-second after he started moving forward, scattering cups and playing cards in his wake. Well, not really _thinking_ \-- not consciously, anyway. He didn’t have much conscious awareness of-- anything, at the time, other than-- _yeah_ . But the words were there, at first. Rattling around in his brain with all the other unhelpful things that get trapped up there. They were a softer focal point than the bruising clench of his fingers against the sticky bar ( _why weren’t they_ on Eliot _, Christ_ ), or the fact that Eliot _wasn’t moving_ , and neither was Quentin, his mouth just-- _pressing_ , holding, _desperate_ against Eliot’s. 

He can still _feel_ it-- in fits and flashes, at least. His eyes squeezed shut. The scratch of Eliot’s expertly curated stubble under the edge of his bottom lip, where his aim had been just a little off, their heights just a little too disparate, even on barstools. The same spicy smell that had hit Quentin like a train the first time he breathed in Eliot’s scarf. The tip of Quentin’s nose pressing against skin-- somewhere on Eliot’s face, Quentin didn’t know exactly where. The brush of one of those perfect fucking Renaissance-sculpture curls against his own forehead-- thicker and coarser than Quentin’s own baby-fine hair, in a way that probably meant that Eliot used-- _pomade_ or whatever, like a real adult, but that just made Quentin’s hands burn to fucking-- rip open the buttons on Eliot’s fussy top and run his palms over the dark hair that was always peeking out of the half of Eliot’s wardrobe that was gauzy and open-necked instead of laced up tighter than a fucking corset. 

For-- seconds, centuries, whatever-- Quentin had just-- _stayed_ there, because there was no _after the kiss_ to deal with, as long as the kiss was still going. (And because he could still _feel_ it, like a stain on his eardrum, Eliot’s soft, almost forlorn _he’s mine_ .) When he’d finally pulled back and let his eyes flutter open, Eliot’s were still closed. Quentin could see the sheen of Eliot’s lavender-gray shadow where it gathered in the creases on his eyelids, and the places where the individual strokes of his dark eyeliner joined. He could see the surprised ( _but not unhappy?_ ) tilt to Eliot’s lips. Then one of Eliot’s big hands covered his own on the bar, and the other cupped his jaw just below his ear, and Quentin was moving back in to meet him halfway, and then their mouths were opening against each other, and _Jesus_ , Eliot moved slow and sweet and deep and easy, and his thumb dipped to curl against Quentin’s pulsepoint . . . 

Something had-- the bartender clearing her throat, probably-- had broken through, at some point, and they’d grabbed for the scattered playing cards (and also High King Margo, who looked fucking-- _knowing_ ) and made their way to the elevators. There was a buzzy, breathing _thing_ between them, all the way up, or Quentin had thought there was, and Quentin was already at half-mast, to be honest, but he’d still sort of been trying not to _assume_ , while assuming all the same. The assumption hadn’t seemed that far off-base, either, when they reached Quentin’s room, which was closer to the elevator, and Eliot had put Margo down on the carpet, the loop of her leash still around his wrist, and pressed Quentin against the door with the full length of his giant’s body, making Quentin half-want to swoon and cry out, _have your way with me,_ like a full-on Gothic heroine, and half-want to dig his finger nails deeper into Eliot’s waist and push _back_. 

The decision point never came, however, because Eliot had pulled away after just a second, putting totally unnecessary space between their bodies, even as he continued to roll his forehead back and forth against Quentin’s hairline. Quentin had opened his mouth to-- he wasn’t clear, honestly. He didn’t get farther than an “um” and an “uh,” though, his eyebrows knotting up while he tried to figure it out, before Eliot’s passionate expression immediately smoothed out and he ducked to kiss Quentin one more time.  
  
“Let’s . . . not overthink it, hm?” he’d said against Quentin’s mouth, after, his eyes soft and entreating. 

Quentin’s brain had helpfully started singing a million songs, all to the tune of _what does that mean._ But he had just nodded, like a fucking idiot, lips still parted and wet where Eliot had traced them with his tongue, then gone into his room, where he has spent the succeeding four-plus hours-- uh huh, yup, _overthinking it._

Well, he amends, as the pile of dirty tissues beside the clock mocks him, he’s spent _most_ of the four-plus hours overthinking it. The part that he _hasn’t_ spent with his hand inside his sleep pants like a fucking teenager, replaying the way that every muscle in his stomach had jumped when Eliot had fucking _mewled_ into his mouth and rolled the thick, heavy line from belt buckle on down against Quentin’s abdomen. Or the way his fingers had tightened against Quentin’s nape, back down at the bar, when Quentin had sucked the taste of whipped cream and booze from Eliot’s soft lower lip . . . 

_Speaking of_ , his cock notes with (another) interested twitch. Quentin sighs, rolling his head back against the pillow, making some of his unbound hair fall into his face, but he’s already thinking about Eliot’s bedroom eyes, already reaching _down_ \--

The knock on the door makes his hand still against the elastic band of his sweats. He has a brief, waking nightmare of a forgotten do-not-disturb sign and an improbably early housekeeping call and a member of the hotel staff seeing the wad of tissues before Quentin has a chance to dump them in the bathroom wastebin under a layer of unused toilet paper. That terror dissipates, only to be immediately replaced by something even more raw, when he hears Eliot’s voice whisper-shouting, “ _Q_?” from out in the hall. 

Quentin stumbles out of bed in an instant, grateful, in an absent way, for the fact that his oversized sweatshirt will camouflage any trace of interest that hasn’t been killed outright by the morning dose of existential panic. When he makes it to the doorway, he has the presence of mind to angle himself in the cracked opening, to block whatever view Eliot might otherwise get into the darkened room.

Eliot freezes when Quentin appears, his eyes travelling from Quentin’s-- _Jesus_ \-- probably matted hair, to his bare feet. If any part of Quentin had held out hope that this was, maybe, possibly a booty call, it disappears when he sees that Eliot is fully dressed, complete with black trench and the peach-colored scarf and those fingerless gloves, and that High King Margo is with him. 

“Oh. Hey.”

Quentin’s voice-- somehow sleep-rough despite the complete lack of sleep-- seems to startle Eliot. He jerks back to attention and meets Quentin’s eyes. Quentin doesn’t _think_ he’s imagining the way Eliot’s eyebrows go a little soft and droopy when Quentin lifts his wrist to clear his vision. But what does he know? Either way, the look disappears quicker than it appeared.

“So I have good news and-- _less_ good news,” Eliot announces, sounding perky and only about half-interested-- not exactly like a man who spent the night tossing and turning for thoughts of Quentin. 

He breaks eye contact briefly to stop Margo before she can make a lunge for the room service tray in front of the door next to Quentin’s, then turns back-- polite, but nothing more. “Which do you want first?” he asks brightly.

It’s probably more a testament to the morning-slowness of Quentin’s brain than the strength of his self-preservation instinct, that he says, “Uh, good, I guess?” instead of _you_.

Eliot smiles. “Well, the _good_ is that we’re no longer flying to Syracuse tonight. So, yay for another night without an appearance from Saint Q the Agonized, patron saint of nervous fliers.”

That _is_ good news, actually. Really good. He hadn’t exactly been looking forward to going back to air travel after two weeks of sipping tea in the passenger seat while Eliot accelerates through the apex of his turns like he was born for it. The news is so good, in fact, that-- like most nice things-- it makes Quentin suspicious. “Is the bad news that we’re flying somewhere, uh, farther instead?”

Eliot just shakes his head. “No. The _bad_ news is that our flight is cancelled because a giant-ass nor’easter is moving in and everything at Logan is grounded starting today at noon, for the foreseeable future.”

“Oh.” Quentin shifts in place. “Does-- does that mean we’re going to miss the event in Syracuse tomorrow?”

It’s no secret that Quentin hates doing book tours, would basically never schedule one, if it was up to him-- would just throw his books out into the void and never speak a word to the hypothetical people who hypothetically read them, because he’s only going to disappoint them, anyway. But once events _are_ scheduled, he feels enormously guilty at the prospect of cancelling, when people have already made plans to go. He thinks about how he would have felt, especially at his lowest points, if he’d thought he was going to get to meet, like-- well. _Not_ fucking Plover. But a hypothetical, not-horrible person who wrote something that _mattered_ to Quentin. The thought that _his_ books might carry a fraction of that meaning for the people who show up at his readings-- the sheer fucking weight of that responsibility-- is honestly the one thing (the one thing before _this_ tour, anyway) that has kept him from bailing on these events when his pre-show panic starts to spike-- _way_ more than Jane’s insistence on redeye flights, or the way she sing-songs _breach of contract_ over the phone when Quentin starts hyperventilating.

“Well,” Eliot is saying, “we’re certainly not going to fly there between now and tomorrow evening. _But_ it’s technically only a six-hour drive. And while I’m guessing the roads _aren’t_ going to be passable for too much longer, I think we can probably stay ahead of the worst of the storm if we leave early. And,” he adds with a hint of a pout, “if we trade Sexy Devil in for something with snow tires.”

“Okay. Um. How soon do we need to leave?” Quentin asks. 

Eliot looks appraisingly at Quentin’s sweats. “How long will it take for you to put on actual pants?” 

Quentin feels his cheeks go red, even though he doesn’t think Eliot _meant_ anything by the jab (even though Eliot can’t possibly _know_ what the inside of these not-actual-pants have seen). 

“Just give me, like, ten minutes to take a shower and put my stuff in the suitcase?” he asks.

“My darling, low-maintenance Q,” Eliot says with a sigh that is either flirtatious or condescending. “Please don’t force me to confront my suspicion that your hair is that shiny and supple even without a conditioning regimen.”

And-- _oh_.

_Shiny_ \-- Eliot could have come up with that description (which Quentin’s not sure he agrees with) just from looking. But _supple_ \-- _supple_ means Eliot remembers, maybe, the way he’d sunk his fingers into the hair gathered at the nape of Quentin’s neck, just above the elastic barely holding Quentin’s low bun in place, using the pressure of fingertips against scalp to angle Quentin’s face the way he’d wanted it.

Because he _had_ wanted it, hadn’t he? At least for a little while? 

Eliot coughs-- maybe because _he’s_ embarrassed, maybe because he can see what Quentin is thinking and is embarrassed _for_ Quentin, for taking a few stupid, not-quite-drunk kisses to heart. “Take your time,” he says. “The new rental won’t be here until six. I was going to do a Hedgebucks run in the meantime, though. If . . .”

He trails off, with a significant look at High King Margo.

_Right_ , Quentin realizes, shaking himself. _He’s here because he wants you to watch his dog. Because you’re a reliable (ish) friend and a sloppy kisser_ (that had been Poppy’s assessment; Alice had always been kind enough to just say ‘enthusiastic’) _and emotions were high last night, but now you have a job to do, together_.

“Yeah, um. Yeah, of course,” Quentin says, reaching out for the leash. “She can-- hang out in here while I get dressed.” 

“Lucky girl,” Eliot answers, big and showy, like it doesn’t mean anything-- because it _doesn’t_ , to him, probably? Or it does and he’s pretending it doesn’t, just like he pretends that his fucking heartbreaking book’s some light-hearted romp. Which comes out to pretty much the same thing, in the end, doesn’t it-- unless and until he decides to let Quentin in on the joke? 

Eliot hands over the leash easily, and Quentin fights down the urge to load that fact-- to load _all_ of it-- with more meaning that it can actually bear. Instead, he gives Eliot an awkward little wave, and begins to draw the door shut, once Margo is over the threshold.

When the door clicks, he waits to hear Eliot walk away, but there’s nothing for a few beats. Until he hears Eliot’s voice, closer, somehow, than when there _wasn’t_ a door between them-- like Eliot’s leaning against the other side. 

“Don’t forget your scarf, okay?” he says softly through the frame, “It’s-- hmm. It’s cold out there.”

Quentin stands there, listening to Eliot just _breathe_ , and then listening to Eliot’s footsteps eventually retreat without getting an answer, long enough that Margo huffs in annoyance, and starts to trot into the main room, the leash pulling at Quentin’s wrist. The logical part of Quentin’s brain (and _that_ ’s a fucking minority share) knows that she’s a _dog_ and so she probably isn’t _actually_ judging him, as he turns on the light and quickly begins cleaning off the nightstand and unrumpling the sheets. It feels like she is, though. The judgment continues as he tucks Eliot’s creased-spine book back into his messenger bag, sniff-tests a t-shirt and a dark hoodie from the bottom of his suitcase, then fumbles into them and a pair of jeans while also towel-drying his hair. They’re _both_ judging him, frankly, when he then stands in the middle of the room in his coat and his beanie, with Eliot’s purple scarf in his hands, lifting and dropping it, and pretending not to breathe in the smell that still lingers in the fibers-- which he has to be some kind of psychological, power-of-suggestion thing at this point, right? Because it’s been a fucking month since the scarf has touched Eliot’s skin. 

It’s that thought-- and the call from the lobby to say the car’s ready-- that makes Quentin finally say _fuck it_ and wrap the scarf twice around his neck, the ends trailing behind him and getting tangled in the strap of his messenger bag, as he tries to manage his suitcase in one hand and the leash in the other. When he and High King Margo make it down to the lobby, mostly unscathed, Eliot’s waiting. His face is unreadable, as he clocks Quentin wearing his scarf. It’s even less readable, somehow, when he hands Quentin a mint tea that Quentin hadn’t even had to ask for, that’s hot but not scalding, like someone thought to ask the barista to pour a shot of ice water over the top. 

“Your chariot awaits,” Eliot says, with a grin that doesn’t reach his eyes, before turning on his heel and leading them out to the dad-van in the valet parking circle. 

Quentin sighs and follows. 

The ride is-- tense. On Quentin’s end, at least, his heart catching every time he breathes in too deep. Eliot, on the other hand, continues to be a fucking-- _It’s a Small World_ automaton version of himself, keeping up a constant stream of mindless patter and singing all the songs he knows Quentin likes the least too loudly, like he’s following a script, the boppy banter at odds with the way his fingers are gripping white-knuckled at the steering wheel and the way there’s nothing at all behind his eyes. 

The act is grating at whatever’s left of Quentin’s one nerve-- enough that he _almost_ finds himself wishing for those last months with Alice, with the stony silences and thunderous frowns that made no bones about exactly how hopeless Quentin’s plight was. He’s pretty fucking close to losing the battle against the urge to shout _quit acting like it doesn’t matter-- the shitty weather, or the cars that keep skidding in front of us, or the fact that I kissed you, or_ whatever _it is that made you decide to play Eliot-Fucking-Gatsby again, after everything that happened yesterday._ Before it can come out, though, Eliot is pulling off the highway-- smoothly; he’s a careful but confident driver, not a jerky, nervous one like Quentin-- and into a gas station. 

When he cuts the engine, it’s like his strings get cut, too, and he just sits there, with his hands still on the wheel, watching the snow fall steadier and steadier around them. After a second, he moves his hands to his lap, hovering over the buckle of his seatbelt, and turns to Quentin. 

“Would you mind taking care of Bambi?” he asks, with a smile that’s tired and thin but more genuine than anything else he’s given Quentin today. 

Quentin doesn’t trust himself to answer, so he just nods. 

They break to play their usual parts, Eliot filling the tank (because Quentin is a Jersey boy, born and bred, and the idea of pumping his own gas still kind of cows him), while Quentin takes High King Margo to empty hers. When Quentin walks around the car to open the sliding back door, he sees that the parking lot is coated in rock salt, which Eliot has said irritates dog paws, so Quentin lifts High King Margo out of her nest of blankets on the backseat and carries her to the little strip of grass at the edge of the lot, which is covered in enough snow that the high king’s belly is wet beneath the edges of her hot pink coat when she finishes turning little circles and Quentin can finally pick her back up and carry her to Eliot. 

Eliot has already finished filling up when they reach him, and is using one of the complementary squeegees to clear the exhaust-gray slush and the chalky streaks from all the flying road salt off the windshield. There’s a bag of Chex mix, a banana, and a bottle of water sitting on Quentin’s seat, clearly visible through the now-spotless passenger window. 

The only thing on Eliot’s side is a plain cup of gas-station coffee. 

As Quentin stares at his unrequested lunch, the wind picks up, and it catches the ends of the scarf around Quentin’s neck, but for once he stays warm, his skin shielded by Eliot’s gift. The feeling, and the fucking _collage_ of all the other ways Eliot is constantly tending to him, thaws Quentin enough that he leans against the passenger door with Margo while Eliot finishes up-- not speaking, but not retreating inside the car, either. Eliot comes to rest beside him after he puts the squeegee back in its holder, close enough that their sides touch through the layers of their coats. 

“You okay to drive the rest of the way?” Quentin asks softly, his voice steady for a change.

Eliot reaches out to pat Margo’s head, leaning past Quentin’s shoulder, the way he had on their first flight together. He nods, resting more of his weight against Quentin, and Quentin tries to remember his question.

“I’m thinking we stay off the main highway from here,” Eliot’s saying, with an absent tilt of his head back toward the way they came, that makes one of his curls catch on the wool of Quentin’s hat. “The smaller roads won’t be as well treated, but there’ll be fewer other drivers to deal with, so probably it’s a breakeven. We’ll see how far we can get before we have to stop.”

Quentin turns his head to look up into Eliot’s heavy eyes. _Is_ this _what you really are, somewhere inside,_ he thinks, _a country boy out on the backroads, who thinks there’s nothing more dangerous to run into than other people?_

Instead, he says, “You look tired.” 

“Yes, well. I didn’t exactly get much sleep last night,” Eliot answers immediately, his shoulder bumping Quentin’s in a way that feels intentional, his eyes sparking again, just a little. 

It’s on the tip of Quentin’s tongue to ask, _because you couldn’t stop thinking what a mistake it was-- rescuing me and then letting me kiss you, or because you need to do it again as badly as I do?_ But the phone in his pocket rings before he can open his mouth.

“Oh, um--” 

He shifts High King Margo in his arms, which, along with the buzzing coming from his coat pocket, makes her yap restlessly, her hummingbird heart speeding up against Quentin’s chest. 

“Here, I can--” Eliot says, trailing his hand deliberately toward Quentin’s pocket, telegraphing his movement.

“Oh, thanks, yeah, that’d be, uh--”

Quentin trails off, but he angles his body so that Eliot can slip his hand inside the pocket. It’s probably a bad idea, but Quentin watches his face the whole time, so he sees the way Eliot’s brows draw together in confusion while his fingers grope inside the pocket for Quentin’s phone. Eliot’s expression clears again, forcefully, when he pulls the phone out and brings the screen close to his face.

“Caller ID says _Don’t Pick Up: Jane’s jackass con--_ ”

“ _Shit_ ,” Quentin swears, his arms still full of affronted royalty. “Don’t-- yeah, just-- don’t answer that.”

Eliot raises one eyebrow. “I got that much from the contact name. Care to elaborate?”

Quentin’s eyes start rolling without any conscious decision. “Jesus, El. No, I don’t fucking _care to elaborate_.”

Even before Eliot’s second eyebrow rises to join the first, Quentin registers that he’s being a dick. He wants to tell himself that it’s just because-- well, book-fucking-three. And it _is_ that. 

But.

It’s also probably because of other things, too. 

Quentin sighs. “Sorry,” he makes himself say. “It’s just-- more book three shit.”

“Ah.” 

Eliot accepts the explanation gracefully, but his eyes drop to the snowy pavement all the same. He lets the phone ring itself silent in his palm, keeping his fingers spread wide. When it finally stops, he gestures toward Quentin’s coat once more. “Should I . . .”

“Yeah, thanks,” Quentin says, the weight of High King Margo’s tiny body in his arms suddenly heavier than it was a few seconds before. The snow’s getting heavier, too.

Eliot tucks the phone carefully into Quentin’s pocket, then uses the rental keyfob to unlock the van’s doors. “Come on,” he says gently, putting a hand on Quentin’s shoulder, then moving it away just as quickly. “Your hands are getting chapped,” he adds, looking embarrassed once the words are out, for some reason. 

It’s slower going once they leave the gas station, even though Eliot was right that there are fewer people and therefore fewer spinouts to contend with, off of the main drag. Even still, within a couple hours, the snow has gone from falling in flakes to dropping in heavy, wet clumps, and Eliot has gone from turning his showtunes down to a normal volume, to turning the music off all together. The only thing that keeps Quentin’s anxiety from spiralling is the confidence of Eliot’s half-gloved hands against the wheel, the deliberate way he hunches forward to see the road ahead. 

They’ve been travelling at a crawl for nearly twenty minutes, somewhere in upstate New York, when Eliot finally sighs and asks Quentin to look for the closest hotel on his phone. 

“We’re only an hour or two outside of Syracuse,” he says, sounding apologetic. “We can see if it clears up enough to try the rest of the way tomorrow.”

Quentin nods absently, already pulling up Google maps, carefully ignoring the voice message notification at the bottom of his screen. 

“Uh,” he says, scrolling through the list that comes up. “It looks like the closest thing is a bed and breakfast. The Mosaic Inn? Two-point-eight miles. There are some chain-type places, too, but they’re all farther away.”

“Might as well try the closest one first,” Eliot says. 

Quentin directs them to the inn, which is actually a cluster of little cabins, in between a few deceptively shabby but probably really fucking expensive antique stores. Eliot goes in to what looks like the main building, leaving Quentin and High King Margo in the van with the keys in the ignition and the heat on. It’s only a few feet between the parking spot and the door, but when he makes it back into the car, his hair is wet, falling in dark waves over his forehead.

“Any room at the inn?” Quentin asks.

Eliot just dangles a single brass key on a red plastic keychain shaped like a heart. “Gather up your donkey, Mary. Apparently they had a first anniversary booked in the honeymoon cabin, but the happy couple had to cancel on account of the weather.” 

Quentin’s throat goes more than a little dry at the idea of a night in a honeymoon cabin with Eliot and Eliot’s just-out-of-the-shower hair and ruddy cheeks, but he manages to force out, “And, uh. They only had the one room, I guess?”

Eliot freezes with his hand against the rental’s ignition. “Sure,” he says lightly, after a pause that Quentin can’t _begin_ to sort out. “Anyway,” he breezes forward, “if I handle all the suitcases, would you be a dear and escort Bambi to our humble abode?”

“Sure. But, um, I only need one hand for the leash. You don’t have to carry all the suitcases.”

Eliot _almost_ looks embarrassed when he says, still airy and casual, “Well, I know you _can_ do both. But I was thinking you could-- carry Bambi to the cabin? Underneath your coat, perhaps?”

Something in Eliot’s careless tone makes Quentin’s eyes narrow. Eliot’s gaze meets his briefly, then darts away again. “She _does_ seem to like that, after all. And who could blame her, really? Whisked off in your surprisingly strong yet tender arms. The gender politics aren’t _particularly_ progressive, I grant you, but certainly you can’t fault her for the _romance_ \--”

“ _El_ ,” Quentin interrupts Eliot’s ramble, reminding himself sternly, when his heart gives a little kick at Eliot’s loving description of Quentin’s arms, that Eliot’s bullshitting. “Does this place not allow dogs?”

Eliot turns to face him, expression totally vacant. “Would you know,” Eliot drawls, “I forgot to ask. Silly me. _Anyway_ , I’m just going to pop the hatch . . .”

It takes, like, a non-trivial amount of cursing on Eliot’s end, but they do finally make it to the honeymoon cabin, which is all by itself at the far end of the lot-- for reasons that are maybe understandable, but that Quentin is trying to convince himself he doesn’t understand. Around the second time Quentin’s roller bag with the bad wheel slams into Eliot’s ankle, Quentin decides to take one for the team, and offers to do a lap of the snowed-over flower beds that edge the back of the cottage with High King Margo, so that she gets _some_ exercise today. She’s clearly not thrilled about the wet or the cold, but she is, as usual, pretty fucking dedicated to marking everything in sight as her dominion, so by the time they make it all the way back around to the front, Margo tucked into her hiding spot inside Quentin’s coat once again, Quentin’s more or less reached the wet-rat stage of his winter aesthetic.

Eliot has left the door unlocked, and when Quentin pushes it open, he has to stop to catch his breath. The space is small, just one room with a little door in the back that Quentin’s guessing leads to a bathroom. Most of the space is taken up by a big bed with an old-fashioned brass frame, which is covered in a patchwork quilt that’s all seafoam greens and sky blues and clay reds. The floor is clean wood, with a thick, tasseled rug, also made up of squares of blue and green and butter-yellow and pinky-red, stretched out between the foot of the bed and the cheerfully blazing brick fireplace. Eliot’s sitting on the rug, his long legs outstretched, leaning back against the foot of the single leather arm chair beside the hearth. He’s barefoot, with the sleeves of his blue-green button-down rolled up, his hair drying frizzier than Quentin’s used to seeing it-- thanks, probably, to the heat of the fire. He’s loosened his tie so that it’s just barely clinging around his neck, his vest is completely open, and the top three buttons of his shirt are popped, revealing milky skin and thick dark hair and the occasional freckle.

His head is tipped back. His eyes are closed. And when Quentin looks at him, he feels a kind of peace, something quiet and slow, that’s rare for him when he’s not nose-deep in Fillory, or hunched into his own laptop. 

_What if we just got stuck here forever, if it snowed for the next-- fifty fucking years_ , the feeling makes him think. _No drafts, no consultants, no Q &As-- just Eliot _.

High King Margo, who’s already earned the right to spend the equivalent in dog years at Eliot’s side, isn’t as reflective about the scene as Quentin is. She jumps to the floor and barrels past Quentin to where Eliot’s sitting, stopping once she reaches him so that she can shake the melted snow still clinging to her fur and jacket everywhere.

Eliot opens his eyes with a groan, but he’s smiling softly as he makes his way over to the big oak chest of drawers on the far wall and pulls out a couple of soft, oversized towels in garnet red. He uses one to dry off High King Margo as long as she’ll allow it, until she grumbles and jumps up onto the big leather chair, plopping down with her two front paws close together, her little puppy chin resting directly on top of them.

Eliot watches her with that same gentle smile as she settles in, before he looks over and shrugs at Quentin, who’s still hovering in the doorway. Quentin tries to smile back, but his throat feels tight. He looks down and tries to-- _occupy_ himself with taking off his scarf and unbuttoning his coat, instead of thinking about this comfortable-looking Eliot, and his sweet smile, and the single fucking bed. 

“Here, let me help with that.”

The words are soft and unexpected, close to Quentin’s ear. He doesn’t look up, but Eliot’s fingers are in his line of vision suddenly, helping Quentin’s red-numb and clumsy hands push the old coat off of Quentin’s shoulders. When Eliot’s hands brush Quentin’s hoodie he frowns.

“This is soaking, too,” he says, unzipping and pulling the fabric down, until Quentin’s just in his t-shirt. 

Eliot has the other towel slung over his shoulder like a waiter. He pulls it down and scrubs it over Quentin’s bare arms efficiently. If he notices the old scars near the creases of Quentin’s elbow-- and he must-- he doesn’t say anything. Which Quentin likes, actually, compared to the people who pull away-- or worse, the people who want to trace them or kiss them, like it’s _romantic_ for him, being reminded of the times he almost gave in and lost everything. 

Eliot clucks, and it pulls Quentin out of his head, just in time to see Eliot reach out for the drenched wool cap that’s still pulled down over Quentin’s ears. 

“Jesus, Q,” Eliot says with a shudder, while his careful hands rub the towel briskly through Quentin’s wet hair. When he pulls the towel away, he’s staring at Quentin with an exasperated almost-smile. 

“You look like something the dog dragged in,” he says, finger combing still-damp strands away from Quentin’s face with so much fucking gentleness Quentin could _cry_.

“Well, _yeah_ ,” he says, with a belligerent little shrug instead. 

Eliot pauses with his hands in Quentin’s hair, his eyes a fucking Vermeer painting, and just _holds_ there--

\--before he pushes back and away, leaving Quentin bereft and empty as his bare arms.

_Again_. 

“In the plus column for this little unanticipated side-quest,” Eliot starts chattering away, like his hands _weren’t_ just tenderly stroking Quentin’s hair, “the Mosaic Inn’s anniversary package is apparently not _as_ cheap as this room’s single-minded commitment to rustic patchwork would suggest.” 

He’s rummaging through a wicker basket that Quentin hadn’t even noticed on the mantlepiece above the fire, and pulls out a bottle of champagne with a lazy lift of one eyebrow.

Quentin still can’t move from his spot by the door. “ _Seriously_ ?” he tries to ask, but it goes ignored, as Eliot bustles around the room, finally producing a couple of ceramic coffee mugs from _somewhere_ and pouring. 

“C’mon, Q,” he says, wheedling and false, as he sits down in front of the fire again, back against the foot of the bed this time, so as not to jostle the chair where Margo is now snoring, her back to them, and holds one mug out. “Bottoms up.”

Quentin just crosses his arms. “Sorry, is there a, uh, ‘good reason’ tonight that I missed? Or, was that just-- a yesterday thing?”

Eliot freezes with his mug halfway to his lips, and-- yeah, maybe it was a low blow, but Quentin would kind of like to know, at this point, if _any_ part of yesterday was real, or if this has all just been Quentin making up stories in his head, playing the biggest fucking fool-- _again_. 

Eliot doesn’t take the sip he was about to, but he doesn’t put the mug down, either. “‘Snowed in at a honeymoon suite’ is definitely on the list,” he says, with cheer that feels increasingly brittle. “Didn’t I mention that one? It’s right between ‘bodyshots,’ and ‘events with mandatory line dancing.’” 

Quentin snorts. “Is that what this is?”

“What else would it be?” Eliot asks, his back going stiff and straight.

“I dunno, maybe ‘avoiding the fact that I kissed you and you fucking kissed me back but now you want to pretend like it didn’t happen’?”

Eliot’s mug slams down on the rug with a dull _thwack_ . “Jesus _Christ_ , Q,” he says, the _la-di-da_ veneer finally snapping, “I’ve been _trying_ to give you an _out_.”

“Give _me_ an out?” Quentin snaps back, his legs finally working again. The slow-burning anger that’s been building in his gut all day sparks hot and bright, at the sight of Eliot laid out like an Adonis, pretending like he’s cutting the dorky, angry, little wet rat free for the _rat_ ’s benefit. “Oh, right. Sure. Give me a _break_ , El. _You’re_ the one who--”

“ _I’m_ the one?” Eliot interjects, but Quentin ignores him.

“--who saved me at that stupid Q&A, and kissed back like the _world_ was ending, and tried to, like, fuck me into the door of my hotel room through two pairs of pants, then told me _not to overthink it_ , and spent the whole day acting like--”

“ _Quentin_ ,” Eliot interrupts again, his voice more insistent this time. “You _told_ me last night that you didn’t want to be-- that you didn’t want to do rebound sex anymore, then two sips of whiskey later, you’re in my lap. What was I supposed to think?”

It stings, even as Quentin tries to hold onto his annoyance. It sounds like the same old desperate Q, throwing himself onto any pair of lips that are willing to entertain the possibility, so hungry for someone clearly out of his league to _want_ him-- if only for a few minutes. 

“Look, if you weren’t interested--” he begins to say, softer than he wants, the words more like a question than the declaration they’re supposed to be.

“ _Q_ , that’s not what I _meant_ .” Eliot reaches out one arm again, no mug this time, and grabs hold of Quentin’s fingers. “Would you please just-- _come here_?”

Quentin sighs and he scrapes his hair back from his face, but he drops down to the carpet anyhow, closer to Eliot than he probably should, and tucks his legs beneath him. 

Eliot tugs on his hand again, pulling him to lie on his side on the plush carpet, with his head in Eliot’s lap. Quentin goes pretty fucking easily-- _what else is new_? He can’t regret it when Eliot starts carding his fingers through Quentin’s hair again, while Quentin stares at the fire in the hearth.

“I wasn’t trying to--” Eliot starts, then stops, with a sigh that Quentin can feel ripple through his body. “Last night was-- I just-- I know it must have been hard for you, after the Q&A, talking about-- _Alice_ , and all the-- _feelings_ that must have dredged up. I get why you would want to go back to old habits, trust me, but . . .”

There’s something that’s nagging at Quentin, about the way Eliot keeps circling back to Alice, something that’s adding up wrong-- or that’s adding up _right_ , but maybe from the not-quite-right numbers that Quentin has been putting out there. 

“El, when I said I didn’t want to-- for the wrong reasons anymore, I didn’t mean, like, I _only_ want to with _Alice_ ,” he says, struggling to explain himself _._ “I just meant-- _not_ \--” 

He cuts himself off with a huff. It’s still embarrassing to talk about-- the way that, for _years_ after he’d gotten dumped by a girl he’d fucked on a Twin XL between exams, every other encounter had felt like a rebound. Every other encounter _still_ feels like a rebound, honestly, all the way up to Poppy at that damn post-convention hotel. The only time it _doesn’t_ feel like a rebound is when-- is when it’s _Eliot._ But there’s no way he can-- it’s so fucking hard to just _say_ that, with Eliot’s bony body below him, and with nothing to look at but the dancing flames that don’t give a shit. 

It gets easier when Eliot pulls the elastic band off of Quentin’s wrist and starts twisting his damp hair into a low bun. 

“ _Shh_ , Q, you don’t have to explain,” Eliot says, as his fingers wrap the elastic band once then twice. “It’s okay.”

Quentin’s not positive that it is, that Eliot _understands_ , but it’s warm here, and Eliot feels so good. He’s starting to drift, he thinks, or maybe he already has been, when he feels Eliot’s fingers playing softly with his own. 

The wood and newspaper wadding in the fireplace both crackle, and Quentin finds himself wondering if Eliot had stoked the fire while Quentin was outside with High King Margo. If he’d built it back up, so that it would be warm when Quentin came in-- and whether it means anything if he did.

“When I pulled your phone out of your pocket earlier,” Eliot murmurs after a few minutes, low beneath the crackling, maybe without even meaning to be heard, “you-- had a pair of gloves in there.” 

Quentin doesn’t look away from the fireplace. “Yeah,” he admits, mostly a sigh. “I do.”

The _why don’t you wear them_ doesn’t need to be said out loud. It’s clear in the way Eliot ghosts over the cracks where the wind and the snow and the cold have chapped Quentin’s skin and broken it open. 

“They, um, they were my dad’s,” Quentin says after a moment, pulling his hands out of Eliot’s and tucking them between his cheek and the soft material of Eliot’s pants, feeling embarrassed of the way the skin stings when his knuckles flex. “I-- it’s dumb, probably. But. My mom had this-- _thing_ when I was kid. About how I-- how I _break_ things.” He shrugs, the motion mostly just a wiggle at this angle. “I don’t-- um. I don’t have that much left of his to lose. So. Yeah.”

Eliot doesn’t say anything at first. “Your dad was-- good to you?” he asks after a moment, like he’s uncertain about how those words can fit together.

Quentin swallows hard. He doesn’t know how to explain, to someone whose own father had made Monster Boy want to burn everything his parents had ever given him to ashes, what it had _meant_ , for Ted Coldwater to microwave hot dogs four nights out of five after his wife left him with a withdrawn eight-year-old, because Quentin had said he liked them once and Ted actually knew how to make them. Or the way he’d taken long, overwhelmed notes at the hospital while the doctors explained chronic depression for him over and over again, and never seemed to retain any of it, but still showed up the next day with a stack of the books that had made Quentin smile when he was a kid.

“He tried-- _really_ hard,” Quentin finally says, around the lump in his throat.

Eliot goes silent again, and Quentin worries what memories he might be reliving. When Eliot speaks, though, it’s not Monster Boy’s story that’s on the tip of his tongue. 

“Is that-- why you’re so worried about book three?” he asks, quietly. “You don’t want to-- break it?”

Usually, Quentin knows, he would tense and hide and curl into himself at the question, rolling all the anxiety and all the uncertainty and all the _guilt_ into the hard-packed ball that lives in the center of his chest. Or maybe he would even lash out, the way he did at Eliot in the gas station parking lot, or at Jane when her questions get too probing, or even at Julia, sometimes, when she tries to go into pep-talk mode. But for some reason, now, with Eliot’s careful hand in his hair, he just-- sighs the tension out instead.

“Maybe a little bit?” he says, because-- well. It’s not like he’s seriously considering _listening_ to Jane’s consultants and their morbid-ass advice. But there probably wouldn’t be a voicemail on his phone that he’s _still_ pretending isn’t there if there wasn’t _some_ part of him that’s scared that if he tells everyone to fuck off and keeps the ending the way _he_ wants it, he really will be the hackneyed, kiddie-book writer they all think he is.

“It’s part of it, but that’s not-- it’s not the main thing,” he says, honestly.

“What’s the main thing, then?”

Quentin doesn’t answer right away. Eliot just keeps petting while he waits, moving from Quentin’s hair, to his back, which is getting humid and sticky, even through the thin fabric of his t-shirt-- the fire’s that warm. 

“That consultant-- the one that called me today,” he finally says, while Eliot strokes back and forth from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. “He-- well, I mean, all of them, kind of. They think I need to kill off the Fool.”

Eliot’s hand freezes against his back.

“ _No_.”

The tone is so unhappy, so insistent, that Quentin finds himself turning onto his back, so that he’s looking straight up into Eliot’s face, which is--

_Aghast_. 

“You can’t do that,” Eliot is saying, his eyebrows drawn together, as he stares fiercely down at where Quentin is lying in his lap, watching incredulously. 

It’s not like Quentin’s _not_ used to people having strong opinions on how _Forty Circles_ should end, or sharing them freely. But he’s not sure if he’s ever been just-- _commanded_ not to hurt the Fool before. It makes the corner of his mouth curl, even as he starts to try to put Eliot’s concerns at ease.

“No, I-- I’m definitely not going to do that. I just meant--”

Eliot’s not placated, though. “It would-- _Jesus_ , Q, his whole arc is about-- learning to live outside the Darkness, learning to _want_ to live outside the Darkness--”

Quentin leans up a little, in spite of himself. “I know, right? It--”

“I mean-- like, that scene? At the bard’s camp? When he and Vix are trying to commune with the ghost children or what-the-fuck-ever, and he tells her about hearing all the old stories and how they _literally_ saved his fucking life--” 

Understanding kicks Quentin in the chest as Eliot continues to ramble, his long, pale hand fluttering around as aimlessly as Quentin’s usually does. Quentin doesn’t say anything, though. He’s too scared of breaking the moment.

“-- it would make _no sense_ to end with him--” Eliot cuts himself off, then launches in again, too keyed up to notice the way Quentin is looking at him like the proverbial anvil just dropped. “Plus, I mean he’s just-- he’s _so_ fucking-- oh my _God_ , no. _No._ I forbid it!” 

Quentin raises his eyebrows at Eliot’s pronouncement, and huffs out half of a disbelieving laugh. Eliot goes a little sheepish at the sound, but he refuses to relax the stubborn set of his dimpled chin. 

“ _Eliot_ ,” Quentin says, pushing himself all the way up onto his elbows, scooting so that he’s beside Eliot instead of lying across his lap. 

It doesn’t feel like something Quentin’s imagining, this time, the way Eliot’s eyes droop disappointed when Quentin’s not touching him anymore. And even if Eliot’s just going to pretend otherwise later, it gives Quentin the courage he needs to scoot in closer and let his head fall onto Eliot’s shoulder. 

“I promise I won’t hurt the Fool,” he says, looking down at where Eliot’s fingers are almost brushing against his on the carpet. 

_I might have once_ , he doesn’t add, thinking of the way it had felt being himself at fifteen-- just fucking _exhausted_ by how meaningless everything had seemed, how ragged-edged and gray. Like he was living behind a thick, grimy glass that kept him apart from everything and everyone else, including the people like Julia, like his dad, that tried so hard to reach him. After college, and after Alice, it had been-- not as bad as when he was younger, thank God. But he’d felt himself sliding, heavy, into that distant, monochromatic place again. That time, it hadn’t just been Fillory, but the world _he’d_ imagined-- in addition to the meds, obviously, and the therapy-- that had helped him remember not to trust his broken brain when it says that everything will always be gray and unbelonging and it’s his own shitty fault. To remember how much _loves_ it, too-- what a world with colors feels like. 

Quentin could almost believe that Eliot is answering both parts of what Quentin said, the spoken and the unspoken, when he turns in toward Quentin, lips against the crown of Quentin’s head, and sniffs, “ _Well_. See that you don’t.”

Quentin lets himself go heavier against Eliot, accepts the arm that Eliot slides around his back, a gentle counterpoint to Eliot’s petulant words, for what it is-- warmth and support and the feeling of not being alone, not tonight, even if Eliot doesn’t want anything _more_ than tonight.

“I guess I’ve always . . . worried,” Quentin confesses, as he sits there in the cradle of Eliot’s body. “That once I finish the story, and there’s nothing else to build, it’ll all feel-- empty. And then I’ll be back in the Darkness all over again. I think maybe-- that’s why I’m scared to be finished.” 

He only realizes after the words are out that this is, probably, the first time he’s said them to someone or something _outside_ his own head. Not to Jane. Not to her consultants. Not even to Julia.

Only Eliot.

Eliot’s hand pauses between his shoulder blades-- just for a heartbeat-- then draws a knuckle firmly down the line of Quentin’s spine. “Well, maybe that’s what all the broken things are good for,” he offers, his voice just the same as his touch-- soft on the surface, with steel underneath. “They give you-- the pieces for building the next picture.”

Quentin lifts his head from Eliot’s shoulder then, because he can’t not. When he looks up to search Eliot’s face, he sees that Eliot’s already looking down at him, his eyes burning as brightly as the fire-- _brighter_ , maybe. 

Quentin doesn’t have to worry, this time, about whether he’s an idiot for throwing himself at Eliot, _again_ . Because this time, when Quentin gets a fistful of Eliot’s open collar to drag Eliot where Eliot belongs, Eliot’s already _there_ , his hands bracketing Quentin’s neck and jaw, his mouth teasing Quentin’s open, until he can lap inside like Quentin’s made of honey. 

It’s just skin and sweat and firelight after that, until Eliot’s on his back on the carpet, his now completely unbuttoned shirt half twisted off over one shoulder, while Quentin mouths at the rough, dark hair that’s been driving him _crazy_. 

Eliot bites back a groan and it fills Quentin with a sudden, insane burst of confidence

“So, um,” Quentin says, as he licks the salt from Eliot’s skin, his own shirt long gone and the elastic band that held his hair back missing in action, “it, uh, really sort of sounded like you’d read my book, earlier. The way you were talking about-- about the Fool’s arc, and all that.”

The yelp that Eliot gives might be outrage, or it might have something to do with the way that Quentin chooses just then to bite down, _hard_ , on his pec.

“ _Seriously_ ?” Eliot asks, breathless in a way that is going directly to both of Quentin’s heads. “ _That_ ’ _s_ \-- _now_?”

Quentin shifts up, then, so that he’s sitting with his weight just south of where _Monster Boy_ is straining the front of Eliot’s fancy trousers. “Well, I mean,” he says, with a shit-eating grin, because Eliot likes when he’s a brat, and he likes Eliot liking him, “I _definitely_ haven’t read the scene at the ghost camp at any of our events, so . . . “

Eliot sighs like he’s bored or indulging Quentin, but for once, Quentin can see through the act on the first try.

“And, like, the ghost camp’s _pretty_ late in book one,” he continues, letting his hands wander over Eliot’s exposed ribs, as he talks. “Like, 800 pages, maybe 900? But last night you said you’d never even started my books ‘cause they’re too long and boring. So unless you’re, like, a _really_ fast reader--” Quentin pauses to tuck a long strand of hair behind his ear and smirk. “I dunno. It kind of seems like you _lied_.”

Quentin’s only teasing, but Eliot’s body stills in its attempt to roll Quentin closer to where Eliot wants him. The cords of his throat go tight as he gulps and then says, quietly, “I lie about kind of a lot of things, actually.”

It shouldn’t make Quentin want to hold him closer, but it does, _Jesus_ , it does. He crawls back up Eliot’s body to kiss him, sweet and needy-- because that’s just who Quentin is, okay? Eliot chases his mouth when Quentin moves away, but Quentin-- Quentin has other plans now, tasting a long, meandering stripe down Eliot’s body, until he’s hovering over the button of Eliot’s pants. 

When he gets there, and sees the way Eliot’s lungs are working like a racehorse, he can’t help but tease just once more.

“You said something about full frontal, I think?” Quentin hums just over Eliot’s skin, his eyebrows going high on his forehead. 

Eliot groans then, as Quentin pops the button and rolls the painted-on slacks down the world-wonders that are Eliot’s thighs, mouthing and sucking over hipbones as he goes. 

When he looks back up, Eliot’s fancy clothes are all askew and his eyes are wild and his _hair_ is wild and the firelight is making love to him as teasing and slow as Quentin wants to. He’s a mess and he’s no less regal for it, and Quentin can’t help but think--

_This_ is the glittering bitch that a lonely monster made himself into, out of all those shattered pieces. 

And Quentin will take whatever parts of him he can get.

For all the thousands of words that Quentin has used to glue together his _own_ broken pieces, over the years, none feel adequate to express the _need_ that’s almost bursting out of him, without putting all of _this_ at risk-- the way Eliot gasps and strains underneath him, the way he tries to hide his eyes, even as his hands soothe and cup the back of Quentin’s neck and he whispers _‘baby boy.’_ So instead Quentin curls even closer, and proves that _he_ can lie, too, when he starts muttering, “Let me-- I, _ngh_ , I promise we won’t overthink it, just let me, _oh God_ , let me--”

Eliot’s whole body goes stiff for a second at “overthink it,” but he must decide that he believes Quentin, because he _does_ let Quentin. Quentin shudders his relief and lowers his head. 

Eliot’s moaning then, “ _Quentin, Q_ ,” louder and louder as Quentin swallows him deeper and deeper, until finally he’s howling it, head thrown back, to the ceiling.

Or maybe, Quentin thinks, as Eliot tugs him, boneless, to his chest, the cries were for the stormy sky that’s somewhere above that-- a million miles away, in the world that allegedly still exists outside the two of them, together, in this warm, little room.


	6. Six

*** * * * ***

**Six**

*** * * * ***

**To:** j.chatwin @ brakebillspress.com

 **From:** h.fogg @ brakebillspress.com

 **Re:** FW: don’t get worked up about it . . . 

Jan. 21, 2020 9:14am

* * *

It appears I may owe you a bottle of scotch. Or perhaps you owe me. I haven’t dared open the attachment yet.

<<Forwarded Message Below>>

**To:** h.fogg @ brakebillspress.com

 **From:** e.waugh @ brakebillspress.com

 **Re:** don’t get worked up about it . . . 

Jan. 20, 2020 3:08am

* * *

. . . but i’ve been working on something new. Hope you like offbrand-hobbits getting absolutely railed by well-hung telekinetics.

*****

The squeal of the taps turning followed by the hammer of water hitting tile are both muffled by the unobtrusive linen wall with its unobtrusive flatscreen TV and its _enormously_ obtrusive holographic print of Niagara Falls, but they distract Eliot from his conversation all the same. Although, in fairness, it’s less the sounds themselves that are the distraction, and more the image they suggest. 

_Quentin_. 

A scant fifteen minutes ago, Quentin had been stretched out on Eliot’s bed, his hair unfurling in all directions, those _dangerous_ dimples sneaking out here and there, as he talked shit about Eliot’s afternoon television preferences with quite a lot of cheek for someone who’d spent the night before in much the same position, all but promising his firstborn if Eliot would just go _harder_. (Eliot had obliged, of course-- without bartering any unborn Coldwaters. In part because Eliot can’t afford to grant himself the illusion that Q’s future children will belong in any way to Eliot. In part because the closest thing to straw in sight had been the soft, honey-brown strands of Quentin’s hair, and Eliot wasn’t spinning them into anything finer than they already are-- if that was even possible-- so much as clutching them tight. And mostly because the only inducement Eliot had really needed was the way Quentin had shivered underneath him.)

Before they’d lounged on the bed watching so-bad-it’s-good daytime television together (Eliot can say it; Quentin can’t), they’d taken Bambi for a walk-- just around the perimeter of the hotel because fucking _Buffalo_ in fucking _January_ \-- also together. And before that they’d had breakfast together and answered their emails in bed together and woken all tangled up together and _and and._

And still, Eliot is somewhat dismayed to find, even that much togetherness has not been nearly enough to slake the starving thing that has apparently lived unbeknownst inside his bones all these years, that Quentin draws forth like a cartoon bluebird to a fairytale princess. Because from the moment Quentin had shed his jeans and hoodie and stepped into the adjoining bathroom and Eliot picked up his phone, all Eliot has been able to think about is what he’s missing, with Quentin just a wall away. That glistening, compact little body that Eliot finds he wants to shield and shelter nearly as much as he wants to dry-hump. The thick hair on Quentin’s arms and legs, darkened by the water. His long mop of caramel hair nearly black, too-- and slicked back off his face. Little rivulets running down the ridge of his forehead and through his dark eyebrows, tracing his annoyingly symmetrical nose and washing over his lips, making them taste slippery and sweet under Eliot’s--

“ _Mr. Waugh?_ ”

_Shit_.

“Hmm? Yes, I’m here.” Eliot _doesn’t_ tug at his silk collar to cool his suddenly flushed neck. Does _not_.

Bambi eyes him dubiously from her perch on the bed anyway. 

“Sorry,” he adds, after swiveling in the desk chair so as to fully turn his back to Bambi and her unnecessary judgment. “Service must have dropped for a second. You were saying?”

Even compressed and distended through the speaker of Eliot’s phone, Henry Fogg’s sigh loses none of its world-weary ennui. It’s actually fairly impressive.

“ _I’m sure it did_ ,” Henry intones over the line. “ _I was_ saying _that I read the chapters you sent._ ”

Right. That. 

“Ah,” Eliot offers after a moment.

He dares to wonder, for the span of several seconds that he assumes Henry spends pouring something, whether he might actually get away with just that. 

He _doesn’t,_ of course. He didn’t _really_ expect otherwise, but it was worth the attempt. It always is.

“ _Ah.’_ ” Henry repeats, unimpressed. “ _I would think the man who spent nearly 2,500 words detailing the interior architecture of Mister_ \-- _Not-Hobbit’s mouth in painstaking detail would have more to say than ‘ah.’”_

If the whole book-editing thing somehow fails to work out, after twenty-odd years in the game, Henry could have a lucrative future calling in phone sex lines, Eliot thinks. With that deep baritone laced with amusement and just _enough_ disappointment to appeal to a certain clientele. That, or late-night smooth-jazz radio hosting, which comes out to pretty nearly the same thing, so far as Eliot can tell-- not that he has excessive familiarity with radio beyond the country station out of Fort Wayne that his mother had listened to religiously (as she did so many things), singing along in her admittedly lovely mezzo-soprano whenever his father was out. He doesn’t imagine that Henry’s hypothetical future radio program would involve quite so many small-town heartbreaks or ham-handed references to Bush-era foreign policy, but a person can surprise. The possibilities, in any event, are more appealing to consider than whether Eliot is only imagining the emphatic little _pause_ that Henry placed between _Mister_ and _Not-Hobbit_ , as if he was about to say a different name entirely and wanted to make sure they both knew it. 

“Yes, well,” Eliot says, with a wan smile that’s for no one’s benefit but his own, because Henry isn’t here to appreciate ( _i.e._ , suffer through) it, and Bambi has already had done with his nonsense. “Brevity may be the soul of wit, but in my experience, the opposite is true of fellatio.”

_Especially where Quentin is concerned_ , he doesn’t add. But, honestly, the boy has an oral fixation that would give _Freud_ pause, and Eliot is entirely too happy to reap the benefits. 

And there’s the rub-- or the blow, as the case may be. Eliot is-- _entirely_ too happy. To (temporarily) have regular access to a lapful, or an armful, or a rambling-car-ride-full of Quentin M. Coldwater. Happy enough that, for the last four nights, he’s found himself scratching words furiously into hotel stationery, while Quentin sleeps tucked up beside him-- at least until the scrawling wakes Quentin and he crawls over Eliot’s body, like the ink stains on Eliot’s fingers are some potent, new aphrodisiac. 

The words that have been pouring out of Eliot are somewhere in the neighborhood of mortifying at present, and will be even worse when-- as Eliot reminds himself, forcibly, every few hours-- this tour ends and Quentin has a house in Montclair calling his name (and an ex to dream of while he’s there), not just an unceremoniously ignored second hotel room that Brakebills is footing the bill for. Yet despite that knowledge, Eliot hadn’t been able to stop himself from typing up his probably appallingly overwrought sketches and half-thoughts and sending them off to Henry, without even the excuse of intoxication this time. Or at least, without the excuse of being intoxicated with anything other than the way that Q only ever stops babbling when he’s leveling Eliot with that superior little smirk of his, or swallowing Eliot whole until Eliot sees stars.

In the silence that follows Eliot’s sparkling _bon mot_ and his decidedly duller self-reflection, Henry finally heaves another sigh. 

“ _As I don’t have all day,_ ” the weary voice in the speaker says, “ _I’ll answer the question you’re declining to ask, and say that I thought the passages you sent were promising._ ”

The praise-- measured though it may be-- brings Eliot up short. It also reminds him, forcefully, of why he can’t quite bring himself to _hate_ Henry, even when Henry insists on treating Eliot like the hard-luck kid that just needs to be tough-loved into making something of himself, like this is a feel-good film that doesn’t actually deserve the awards-season hype that it will get anyway, because there’s nothing America loves more than pretending to respect teachers as long as it doesn’t cost anything. 

To put it more directly (with ever-so-slightly less evasion), Henry may be a borderline functional alcoholic (not that Eliot is one to judge on that particular score) and jaded at levels that give even Eliot pause, but he is also the first person that looked at Eliot’s gifts, such as they are, and saw something not to humor or fear or just not _get_ , but to encourage. 

So no, Eliot can’t ever quite hate Henry. Especially since Henry’s support always comes couched in just enough long-suffering irritation that Eliot can convince himself he’s focusing on _that_ part, instead. 

“ _The prose is a satisfying mix of detachment and pornography_ ,” Henry is continuing to explain, obviously not expecting any (productive) feedback from Eliot. “ _It’s notably unsentimental, and yet a great deal of affection between Monster Boy and his paramour is apparent._ ”

Eliot chooses to ignore the _shit_ out of that assessment, waiting instead for the upward lilt in tone that will signal Henry transitioning from patting Eliot’s head to kicking his ass into gear-- _i.e._ , the moment that Eliot can starting breathing normally again.

“ _My_ question--” Henry says-- and ah, yes. There it is-- “ _is where you see this going?_ ”

It’s so close to a what-are-your-intentions question that Eliot, for a second, forgets that they’re talking about Monster Boy and the Not-Hobbit who shagged him, and not-- anything else. He gathers hold of himself and gifts Henry with a light chuckle. 

“I don’t suppose we could just stick with the sex, run the thinnest of plots through it, and shop it to the Brakebills Heat imprint?”

Henry lets out a single bark of laughter. “ _I wouldn’t give Bigby the satisfaction. Not after she poached Poppy Kline’s_ Dragon Dukes _series from the flagship line._ ”

Eliot has no idea who Bigby is, but the way Henry’s voice reverberates on the name makes him suspect there’s intrigue there. 

“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, half-hoping that Henry’s personal drama will distract him from the question of what the hell Eliot is _doing_. Once again, no such luck. 

“ _Are you asking about the Heat line because you see this as a conventional romance?”_ Henry asks, voice meticulous again. “ _Because we can . . . certainly work with that. But I assumed based on prior conversations that any continuation of Monster Boy’s story would be something more in the vein of tragicomedy.”_

“What exactly is the difference?” Eliot asks back, trying not to feel like he’s workshopping titles for his eventual _actual_ autobiography. “Between conventional romance and tragicomedy?”

“ _Is there going to be a happily ever after?_ ” Henry returns, blunt and plain.

Eliot’s mouth and throat suddenly feel like they’re closing. “In-- the, ah, questionable massage parlor sense?” he manages to eke out, before they do.

Henry doesn’t dignify the parry with an answer. “ _I understand that the creative process takes time and that you’re obviously-- just at the start of this new project. Normally my preference is to give an author space to find the shape of their story in the first instance, but in your case . . ._ ”

“In _my_ case,” Eliot fills in, because this part he knows well, this part he _trusts_. This part feels less like his mother cooing platitudes at her curly-haired baby boy after his father yelled at him to stop crying, and more like his mother watching her curly-haired teen with fatalistic satisfaction after his father cracked him across his smart fucking mouth, because Jesus may love the little children, but Eliot stopped being something his mother could envision any creator taking pride in sometime around puberty. “You can’t trust me to get it right on my own.”

“ _When we were working on the ending to your first book_ ,” Henry says, and it’s not a denial, but still, he says _first_ book, implying that there will be a second. “ _You were adamant that it wasn’t a series. You said there was no more story for Monster Boy. You have to understand why I’m--_ skeptical _to see a shiny new path forward now._ ”

Hearing his own words from several months ago strikes Eliot differently now, after listening to Quentin rail so hard, in that _tenacious_ way of his, against the idea that his Fool has no story left to tell. 

Eliot-- hadn’t exactly meant that Monster Boy’s story was over, in the way that a younger Q apparently had expected the Fool’s story to be over. Eliot had never wanted Monster Boy’s story to _end_ , as it were-- although in retrospect he’d probably showed a callous disregard for the possibility at certain low points. 

When he’d told Henry that Monster Boy has no more story, he’d meant that Monster Boy has nowhere else to _go_ . Because he doesn’t, does he? He escaped the Village of Bumblefuck. He escaped his shitty, angry dad (fed him to cannibals, in fact) and his brittle, lonely mom. He disappeared into a new persona in a new kingdom, and formed a team of fabulous outcasts with a motherfucking dragon and there’s nothing more that he can _reasonably_ hope for, is there? The plot has never been for him to find something as plebeian and boring and _undeserved_ as a person who will kiss him goodnight. Sweet little _happy_ endings are for heroes, and the fools that love them. Triumph, hard and heady, is enough for beasts and bastards, and if Eliot is writing anything _other_ than that now, then that’s-- well-- it’s just--

On the other side of the beige wall, Quentin suddenly starts singing-- loud and enthusiastic and hopelessly off-key. Eliot happens to know that his selection is from T. Swift’s Christmas album, turn of the calendar page be damned. It’s the most basic-bitch kind of treacle, and Eliot’s heart seizes at the realization that, once the calendar turns one more page, he will very likely never hear it again-- at least, not this particular cover. 

Eliot drops his gaze to the fake wood grain of the hotel’s laminate-top desk. 

“I don’t-- I need to think more about the ending,” he finally mutters to the phone-- and to himself.

There’s a pause on Henry’s end of the line, almost like he’s weighing his words. But that must be Eliot’s imagination, because Henry lets out a long exhale, but says nothing further on the topic.

A moment passes, and when Henry speaks again, his voice is wry. “ _The walls of your hotel must be terribly thin_ ,” he says. “ _I can hear your neighbor singing in the shower as if it’s coming from your room_.”

“Mm, yes,” Eliot agrees, without even choking on the word, even though _the call is coming from inside the house_ , if you will, and in reality the hotel’s walls are thick enough (or their neighbors discreet enough) that no one called in complaints when he and Q slammed headboard into wallpaper for absolute _hours_ last night, because-- well, _lies._ That’s what he’s good for. 

“You might suggest to _Todd_ that he choose a different hotel for future Buffalo bookings,” he says, flippant. And then, for good measure, he adds, “You might also suggest that he skip Buffalo entirely in the month of God-damned January.” 

Henry only chuckles indulgently. “ _Speaking of sensible winter choices. Did you receive Todd’s email about adding a midwestern swing to your tour?”_

Eliot did indeed receive the email. He’d scrolled through the list of additional cities with his heart in his throat, waiting to see Fort Wayne or Indianapolis or some other name that would force him to admit-- if only to himself-- that the possibility of spending an extra five days out of time with Q was probably just about enough to make him renege on the promise to never go back that he’d made to himself when his Greyhound crossed the Indiana state line in 2007. But Eliot had been saved that little moment of self-awareness by the fact that Brakebills, in its infinite wisdom, had settled on an _upper_ -upper midwestern swing in the dead of winter: Ann Arbor, Twin Cities, Madison, Chicago. 

“ _The P.R. team agrees with Jane and I that it seems a waste to end the tour when you and Mr. Coldwater have finally figured out how to avoid embarrassing yourselves in public_.”

And-- okay. Henry can posture all he wants, but there’s no denying that Eliot and Q have been _owning_ their last few appearances, now that they’ve figured out how to harness the power of the undeniable chemistry between them to shift the conversation where _they_ want it to go. Videos are still going up online, but instead of the kind that Quentin hate-watches to punish himself, the latest crop are all tagged _OMG *these* two again,_ or _get a room already!_ , or once, memorably, _#relationshipgoals_. (Eliot had made himself read that one out loud, blithe and even, to Q over hotel bagels, even as the chewy dough-- and nothing else-- sat like a rock in his gut.) 

“I’ll talk to Quentin about it,” Eliot says, forcing himself to remember that, the #Queliot frenzy notwithstanding, Quentin hates book tours, and he, in all likelihood, isn’t so besotted as to overlook that fact in favor of a few more days fucking Eliot on borrowed sheets. 

“ _I have no doubt you will_ ,” Henry says, in a voice that is about a dozen times more knowing than Eliot is willing to acknowledge. 

Quentin’s shower serenade goes up a key unexpectedly and Eliot grimaces at the amused huff that follows from the speaker.

“ _In what I’m sure is an unexplainable coincidence_ ,” Henry adds, smug and imperturbable, “ _I believe Mr._ Coldwater _sang that same song at a Brakebills Christmas party several years ago. If I recall correctly, his friend Miss Wicker had to coax him down off the table._ ”

Eliot’s discomfort at at Henry’s not-subtle insinuation wars with his utter infatuation with the vision of a sloshed Q-- preferably in an ill-fitting blazer and lackluster ponytail-- doing impromptu karaoke in front of a bunch of suits. Which in turn wars with the sinking realization of _who_ exactly would have inspired a booze-brave Quentin to warble for all the world that he misses Christmases when she was his. Who exactly _should_ inspire that kind of devotion from their would-be knight-errant-- and who shouldn’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, anyway.

Henry gives one final sigh when Eliot fails to respond. But just as Eliot is about to give him a _ciao bella_ and end this endless call, Henry gets in one more parting shot.

“ _Think about what I said earlier,_ ” he intones, solemn once more. “ _Before you can know what it is you’re writing next, you have to answer the question: What is it that Monster Boy_ wants _?”_

Eliot manages to keep the sneer out of his voice, but only just, as he chirps out a “Will do,” and bangs the red button, a few crucial seconds later than he should have.

_Oh, Henry_ , he thinks, as he pushes the phone across the desk in frustration and brings his knuckles up to press against his lips. _Wrong question_.

On the other side of the wall, Quentin gives up on his third or fourth consecutive repeat of Taylor’s chorus, and jumps back to the first verse-- or maybe it’s the second. Eliot’s pretty sure Quentin only knows the one, whatever its proper number. 

Eliot’s also pretty sure that he didn’t give himself permission to take off his velvet blazer (with the stiff, glossy rectangle hidden away in the inside pocket), then his gauzy top, then his pants and his briefs. He _definitely_ didn’t give himself permission to toss those fine fabrics unceremoniously on a hotel comforter while Bambi looks on placidly, but it happens all the same. So does pushing into the rainforest-humid bathroom, where the right answer to Henry’s wrong question is washing shampoo out of his long hair.

The opening door startles Quentin out of the CMA performance he thinks he’s giving, and he yelps, dragging his broad hands over his eyes, when the suds drip into his face.

“Jesus Christ, El,” he says, breath catching like an old biddy exposed to a jump-scare. “Are you being creepy on purpose, or--”

Eliot ignores the grumbling in favor of sliding open the glass shower door, stepping under the scalding spray, and plastering himself against Quentin’s back. And-- _yes_. That’s perfect. That’s-- fine, rather, and it’s good, and it’s no big deal that it makes everything that’s tight inside of him start to unclench.

“ _Hey_ ,” Quentin says, softer now-- maybe because he can feel the tension in Eliot’s arms, maybe just because he realizes that the shell of Eliot’s ear is all but resting on Quentin’s vocal chords. “Your call go okay?”

Eliot nods into Quentin’s wet shoulder, letting the rapidly flattening waves of his hair fall forward over Q’s collar bone. He crosses his arms more tightly across Quentin’s shoulders and chest, and focuses on how nice it feels to be able to scoop Quentin up this way, instead of how nice it feels to let Quentin take his weight. 

“Henry wanted to know if we got the email about extending the tour,” Eliot finally says, his tongue catching the bitter tang of soap bubbles as his mouth moves against Q’s skin. 

“Oh. Yeah.” Q’s pulse kicks up just a tick; Eliot can feel it, where his cheek presses against the hollow of Quentin’s throat. “What did-- uh, what did you tell him?”

“Said I’d talk to you.” 

Quentin hums a little, his shoulders drawing in, his arms starting to flap aimlessly, beneath the constricting band of Eliot’s hold. “Well, I mean. I think the fans would really like it, right?”

His voice pitches up just a little at the end, and Eliot can’t help the smile that tugs the corners of his own mouth in the same direction. He presses his lips tighter to Quentin’s soapy shoulder, to hide the smile. “Mmm,” he agrees, “the fans. Definitely.”

He can feel the little snort that Quentin makes right against his ear. Can’t see the smirk that always makes those little dimples come out to play, but he knows it’s there. Can feel it in the way the skin of Quentin’s jaw shifts against Eliot’s temple.

“Plus, I mean,” Quentin is continuing, voice a little looser now, hands cautiously exploring Eliot’s arm across his chest, “they’re just going to make us go on more tour dates later--”

Eliot snorts back, then, directly into Quentin’s skin. “Not everyone has fan-club affiliate chapters in every midsize-or-greater U.S. city, you realize.”

“Shut up. You’re _literally_ on the New York Times bestseller list right now,” Q returns, throwing his head back against Eliot’s shoulder in a way that all but _invites_ Eliot to turn his attentions to the side of that sturdy, smooth neck. All the better to avoid thinking about the fact that he is, in fact, on the New York Times bestseller list at the moment. And that, accordingly, a significant number of people now know, at some level of abstraction, about the time he kicked the shit out of the only boy who was nice to him in high school, because it was hit or be hit and Eliot got enough of that shit at home. 

“Yes,” he drawls instead of thinking, even as he lets the blunt edges of his teeth play with Quentin’s collarbone, “that’s why everyone shows up to our events dressed up as _my_ characters.”

“Hey, there was that Monster Boy cosplayer in, uh, Ithaca the other night--” Quentin manages to say around a sharp inhale when Eliot scrapes a little harder. 

“Jesus, Q, for the last time-- that wasn’t cosplay; he just had a gym sock shoved down his fly,” Eliot says, with a chastising slurp that he knows will stop just short of leaving a hickey. “Plenty of non-Comic-Con reasons for that. The fact that _you_ couldn’t keep your eyes above table height when he asked for an autograph, for one.”

Quentin doesn’t take the bait, but his little laugh is dismissive and amused-- despite the fact that they both know that Quentin _always_ goes extra saucer-eyed and stammery whenever a girl with a C-cup or a boy with a bulge coos about how much they just _love_ his writing. 

“Well, maybe if your narration bothered to, you know, describe anything about Monster Boy other than his ten-inch--”

The next word is lost on a gasp as Eliot rolls its referent against Quentin’s back, pinching a pebbled nipple when Quentin arches into it. “I’m sorry,” he cackles into Quentin’s ear, “did you want me to impugn my credibility as an artist and _not_ tell the absolute, unvarnished, God’s honest--”

This time it’s Eliot who loses his last word as Quentin tips his head back farther to administer a delicate, snapping bite to Eliot’s chin. When Eliot looks down into his upturned face, and sees the smile beaming there, he loses any other words that may have followed as well. Instead, he just grins down at Quentin, softer than he probably should, and smooths wet hair back from his forehead.

“I’m just saying,” Q says softly, snuggling back into Eliot’s hold, “if we both probably have to go back on tour at some point, why not do it now? When, you know, we’re . . . getting something out of it.”

The phrasing makes the lightly rocking sway that Eliot had adopted stutter, just for a second, until he catches himself. 

_Exactly right_ , he wants to say. We’re both getting something out of this. It’s a convenient arrangement and nothing more. 

Except that-- _what exactly are_ you _getting out of this?_ Is what he _also_ wants to say. But won’t. 

What he says instead of either of those options is what he _wants_ to want to say. Which is: “It’d mean almost an extra week on the road. Sure you wouldn’t rather go home to Jersey?”

Quentin shivers a little, like Eliot does when Eliot puts a number on how little time they have left together. Maybe it’s for the same reason, or maybe it’s because he _does_ miss home, or maybe it’s just because the water is starting to cool. He shakes his head, for whatever reason, and says, “Let’s do it.”

_Don’t overthink it_.

Eliot hums brightly, unclasping Quentin long enough to reach past him for the hotel soap-- something to do with his hands. Eliot is dubious, generally, of complimentary products and scandalized, always, by the fact that Quentin relies on them exclusively, not having so much as a tube of conditioner packed in his suitcase. This particular freebie lathers up nicely enough, at least, and smells faintly of white tea, which Quentin probably loves. It seems like he does, anyway, when he sighs and goes boneless, as Eliot begins trailing soapy hands across his chest. 

“The midwestern events are less spaced out, you know,” Eliot says quietly as he draws a line down Quentin’s sternum. “It’ll mean a lot more flights.”

“ _Shit_ ,” Quentin says, his blissed-out expression cracking just long enough for his eyes to open. But they flutter closed again, when Eliot glides lower and starts soothing circles over the meat on his hipbones. “ ‘s not so bad when it’s with you,” he slurs after a moment. 

It’s like he can sense Eliot’s out-of-season grinch heart growing six sizes-- or more likely, that he feels the thump of it pressed up against his back-- because Quentin immediately begins backtracking. “I mean-- with Margo, and you. Because of Margo. You know, the whole. Lap dog thing.”

_It’s okay, baby boy_ , Eliot doesn’t say, while Quentin tries to avoid giving him the wrong impression. _I know exactly what this is. We won’t overthink it._

His teasing tone conveys the same, he thinks, when he trails his hand lower and lower, until he can feel rough curls beneath his fingertips and murmurs against the skin of Quentin’s ear, “Get you set up in your blanket fort, hm? Let them all think that I’m--”

“ _Yeah_ ,” Quentin breathes out, open-mouthed and wanting. And even though it can’t be a surprise, even though he practically engraves an invitation, the way he rocks forward, straining for Eliot’s slick grip, his knees still buckle when Eliot wraps a hand around him. 

“ _El_ \--”

He gasps it, in the same moment that his arm flings up to loop backwards around Eliot’s neck. It’s all Eliot can do to turn his face into Quentin’s jaw and suck at the place where it meets his ear, where the shampoo has long since washed away. If Eliot does anything else, he’ll _speak_ , and he can’t-- he won’t--

“What do you want?” Quentin pants out. 

It’s the second time in half an hour that Eliot has been asked that question, and Eliot practices the lines (the _lies_ ), in his head, before he unlatches from Quentin’s skin.

“Just this,” he says. 

_Like it doesn’t mean anything_.

He spins Q around as soon as he says it, so that Quentin can brace with both hands against the glass door, leaving steamed-up handprints as he scrabbles for purchase-- which will never not be a turn-on to anyone who, like Eliot, spent a solid portion of their sexual awakening thinking about losing their v-card to a floppy-haired Leo DiCaprio in the back of a model-T. He covers one of Quentin’s hands on the glass with his own, and slides his free hand back down so that he can get Quentin off, soapy and slow, the way Quentin deserves. As soon as he makes contact, Q’s head drops forward, his forehead coming to rest on the glass next to their joined hands. Eliot expects him to sigh or to shudder or to call out again. 

He doesn’t expect Q to shout, “Holy fucking _shit_!” and jump back from the glass like it’s been suddenly electrified. 

In the clusterfuck that follows, Eliot’s so distracted by Quentin trying to literally hide behind Eliot and cover (or try to cover) his beautiful dick with his hands, and so focused on not going ass over teakettle on the floor of the shower stall himself, that it takes him a minute to figure out what, precisely, spooked the shit out of Q. He finally gets there when he notices that Quentin’s dismayed gaze is fixed about a foot off the ground, just outside the shower stall, where--

Oh my God. _Amazing_.

\--where _Bambi_ has parked her furry little ass, and is staring up unabashedly with her solitary eye at the naked humans who are supposed to be attending to _her_ needs.

“How did she even get in here?” Quentin is sputtering, as he puts the long lines of Eliot’s body as a shield between himself and their flour-sack-sized voyeur. 

“I must not have closed the door all the way behind me,” Eliot answers, doing his level best-- under the circumstances-- to maintain decorum. “I guess she got-- curious.”

Q’s jaw hang opens-- very attractively-- for the space of a second, before his hands are flying around his face again. “She-- El, she was staring _literally_ right at my--”

“Well, I can hardly _blame_ her,” Eliot says, reaching back to goose Q-- which nearly leads to _Q_ going over ass over teakettle in his rush to get out of the shower stall and cover himself with a towel. Fortunately Quentin keeps himself upright; Eliot is very invested in that particular teakettle-- not to mention that ass. “If it’s any consolation,” he adds, “her depth perception probably isn’t that great.”

“Your dog is a deviant,” Q mutters, the effect only partially spoiled by the way his feet nearly slip out from underneath him again, as he makes the widest possible circle around Bambi on his way toward the door. 

“Okay, _(a)_ how dare you; Bambi is her _own_ dog. She belongs to no man,” Eliot yells out to him over the noise of the shower. “And also _(b)_ I mean, _obviously_.” 

Quentin doesn’t seem to notice, as he rolls his eyes and stalks out the door, that Bambi follows after him, her little claws clicking against tile as she prances out with deceptive innocence. Eliot thinks about following after them to play referee, but not _everyone_ can get their hair wet and then expect to look passable at a book signing without following up with at _least_ one round of leave-in anti-frizz treatment, _Quentin_. 

By the time Eliot has performed the necessary ablutions and made his way back out to the main room, towel around his waist, the peace has apparently been restored. Bambi sits in the hole that Q’s semi-lotus-position legs leave, as he sits in khakis and a white undershirt, waiting for his hair to dry before he pulls on whatever school-picture-day sweater he’ll be treating the crowds (and Eliot) to tonight. He’s got his phone in one hand and the room service menu in his other. 

“Order in?” he asks, without looking up. “It’s too fucking cold to go out and bring food back.”

Eliot thinks about lying down sideways across the bed, resting his head on the knee that Bambi’s not occupying, soaking up Quentin’s soft tending for himself. But-- but he’s already started on his hair and anyway it’s still mostly wet, and it’s not like Quentin’s poor little Dockers can stand any _more_ abuse beyond the sadistic design choices that made them. He goes over to his suitcase instead, where someone-- _Quentin_ \-- has unceremoniously stacked the pieces of the outfit that Eliot discarded earlier. 

“We could stop for something on the way to the bookstore,” he offers, as he steps into the silky black briefs first. 

Quentin finally looks up at the sound of Eliot’s voice. He doesn’t quite manage to disguise the way that his gaze trails hot and slow from Eliot’s ankles all the way up to his eyes. Which is fair, because Eliot doesn’t quite manage to disguise the way the obvious admiration makes him swagger. 

“Um,” Q says, shaking his head once, like he’s trying to reboot himself. “Sorry. Uh, if we go out somewhere, they might not let Margo in, so.”

He finishes with a shrug. Eliot looks down, suddenly engrossed in getting the buttons on his top just right, touching the little shell discs carefully, as if he expects them to have been warmed, literally, by the endearment that floods his chest every time he notices how naturally Quentin takes care of his Bambi. 

“Well, I suppose we do owe her at least a dinner,” he says, when he’s sure that he can speak steadily. “After giving her a floorshow.”

Q fixes him with an unimpressed look, even as he runs a hand absently through Bambi’s long fringe. “Pretty sure she owes _me_ a dinner, if anything.”

Eliot cracks a wide grin at that. He pulls the zip up on his pants, and comes to lounge on the bed in what he’s hoping is a posture of inviting repose, his upper body propped against the padded headboard, his long legs outstretched. He windshield-wipers his legs, so that his bare feet nudge against Quentin’s knee, where Q is sitting cross-legged at the end of the bed. 

“Don’t be such a prude, Q. A little threesome never hurt anybody.”

Quentin spins around to face him. The movement jostles Bambi enough that she leaves his lap for apparently greener pastures-- that being, the broad expanse of Eliot’s chest in his nearly transparent top. Personally, Eliot wouldn’t give up Quentin’s lap for _anything_ , but to each their own. 

“Yeah, uh. Not with a dog,” Q says, which-- _interestingly_ , is not a categorical no to threesomes in any form. 

“Noted,” Eliot says, bringing a hand up to scratch at Bambi’s ears when she huffs hard enough to ruffle the ties of his shirt. “Yes, yes, you little terror,” he soothes, drawing his eyes away from Q to focus on his first-- uh. On Bambi. “I’m paying attention to you.” 

“I guess this is what I get for christening her as I did,” he adds, once Bambi has settled down. “She’s only living up to her namesake, after all.” 

Quentin has shifted so that he’s laying on his side, his head at Eliot’s feet, his own feet not even reaching the pillows. “How’s that?” he asks. “Is OG Bambi a notorious peeping Tom or something, when he’s not, like, letting butterflies perch on his tail?”

“His best friend’s name is _Thumper_ . You decide how much of a freak he is,” Eliot retorts, chuckling when Quentin’s eyes go big and dismayed in that you’re-ruining-my-childhood way. “No,” he consoles, after a moment. “I’m sure _that_ Bambi is a perfect gentleman. I meant _our_ Bambi’s other namesake.”

Quentin pushes up, so that his head is propped up on one hand. “High King Margo?” 

"I _did_ once tell you she was named for someone important to me. Remember?"

Quentin blushes. It's devastating, of course. "No, I-- I remember that, yeah. I kind of just assumed you made it up.” 

Eliot smiles, opening his mouth to start the story before he even realizes that he’s never told anyone before-- save Bambi, herself of course. 

“ _Q._ Are you familiar with the works of our Lord and Savior, Janet Pluchinsky?” he asks with deep solemnity.

Q’s dark eyebrows rise. “Can’t say I am. Should I be?”

Eliot sighs dramatically. “She was one of the founding editors of Hipbone. The fashion magazine. So, going by those pants you’re wearing, no, I don’t suppose you _would_ be.” 

Q rolls his eyes and pinches the usually ignored skin on the bottom of Eliot’s foot, making Eliot kick him away and giggle. 

“ _Bitch._ ”

Q just rolls his eyes again. “Sure.”

“ _Anyway,_ ” Eliot continues, “In addition to co-founding one of the foremost publications of our times, Ms. Pluchinsky had a sidelight as a writer of _supremely_ trashy paperbacks. My friend--”

Eliot pauses, pressing his lips together once before correcting himself. “This-- boy I knew in school. Who was nice to me. Taylor. His mother used to read them, like, voraciously. We were hanging out at his house one time and he dared me to steal one, so I did.” 

Eliot can still remember the shelf behind the La-Z-Boy in Taylor’s living room, that Taylor’s chirpy, pleasant mom with the seasonal earrings and White-Snake-video hair kept stuffed to the absolute _gills_ with drugstore erotica. He can remember looking through the shelf furtively, all elbows and frizz and regrettable plaids, looking for the one that would make Taylor laugh the loudest, until he found _her_ . Some pretty cover model who was dark-eyed and nearly naked-- which wasn’t as compelling to him as it would have been to most of the boys in he and Taylor’s class. But she was also _powerful_ , like nothing and no one could hurt her unless she gave it permission first-- which _was_ compelling to the person who Eliot had been. Immensely so. 

“This book,” Eliot continues, staring into the middle distance, “it was-- just, bananas. It was about this princess who gets banished from her kingdom by this other frenemy princess, and then she wanders out into the desert, and trips _balls_ on some kind of vision quest, and loses an eye, and then finds this, like, society of killer Amazons that are beset by demons or something, and she eventually becomes their leader--”

“High King Margo the Destroyer,” Quentin fills in, getting the picture. He’s looking at Eliot fondly, like he’s seeing Eliot at fifteen ( _liking_ Eliot at fifteen), hiding the stolen book under his pillow where his father won’t find it. Not that his father would give a shit about stealing-- only the fact that, once again, Eliot had sought out something _for girls, dammit_ . Although, honestly, it was the only thing Eliot had ever stowed under his pillow that had a half-dressed _woman_ on the cover, so maybe his father should have taken his victories where he could find them.

“The very one,” Eliot confirms, biting his lip when Q rests his hand on the naked, vulnerable skin of Eliot’s knobby ankle, where not even any hair grows. “Anyway, it was just-- sex, mostly,” he says, shaking his head. “You would have found it entirely tawdry, I’m sure.”

The book was, in fact, from the Brakebills Heat line. Eliot can still remember the seal on the cracked spine: the little bee and key superimposed over a hot pink flame. He’s wondered, more than once, how much of his impulse decision to send the Monster Boy manuscript off to Brakebills in particular was driven subconsciously by the memory of that little insignia.

“Most of it was about Margo fucking, like, some kind of warlord. And possibly a lizard-man at one point? I always kind of thought she was _really_ hung up on the princess who banished her, but--”

Quentin’s lips graze Eliot’s ankle, replacing his gentle fingers just for a moment, and it freezes Eliot’s babbling. 

“It sounds-- kind of like Fillory was for me,” Q says, quietly, still close enough that Eliot can feel the soft puffs of his breath against his skin. “Somewhere-- _else_. To go. To belong.”

Q lifts his eyes and looks down the length of the bed to Eliot, and--

And Eliot wants to tell him to _look back down_ , so fucking badly. Q-- he has no idea how _hard_ it makes everything, when he looks at Eliot like there’s even a shred of all the good, true things that make up _Quentin_ inside of _Eliot_ . When he looks at Eliot like he’s seeing a hero, instead of the selfish little fuck who savaged anyone who was ever kind to him ( _because he doesn’t need or want gentleness; he never has_ ), who’s nothing but cheap thrills and expert lies, who acts like there’s a crown on his head and pretends that makes him a king. 

Eliot swallows, hard, and pulls his foot away from Q, carefully. “We should-- ah. We should order, if we’re going to have time to eat before we have to leave,” he says, apologetically. 

Q pops up from his sprawl across the bed easily. “Oh, right. Um, could you just order me a Caesar salad? And chamomile tea, if they have it?” 

He’s leaning in to kiss his thanks to Eliot’s mouth, warm and familiar and _domestic_ , before Eliot has even nodded. 

The event that night goes off without a hitch. Well, if you don’t count just before they leave the hotel, when Q spills tea all over the cuff of his sweater, and Eliot drags him into the bathroom to dab at the stain with a wet towel-- which Eliot doesn’t, mostly because the sweater is beyond hurting, but also because of the way Q smiles at Eliot’s reflection in the mirror, while Eliot pretends to scold. 

The event itself passes without even _that_ much minor drama. But how could it do otherwise, when Quentin decides on the spot to switch books for the reading, showing off a preciously inaccurate impression of Eliot that’s all sex and aristocracy with not a touch of dirt-caked twang? And when Eliot intercepts the inevitable question for Q about book three, pulling the microphone from Q’s hand before Q even has a chance to begin stuttering, and demands an answer to the _real_ pressing question of whether the Fool will ever consummate his repressed feelings for surly tavernkeeper Shilling (whom Eliot, but no one else in the crowd, knows that Quentin fashioned after his antagonistic and apparently shirt-allergic freshman roommate, because Quentin confessed as much into Eliot’s bare shoulder two nights ago)?

When they make it back to the hotel room (to _Eliot_ ’s hotel room), and they both collapse onto the bed, while Bambi nests in her own personal pile of blankets near the desk, Quentin brings up _A King, Not a Princess_ again. 

“What was it you liked so much about her? High King Margo. The character, I mean?” 

He turns his head to look at Eliot. The lights are off, but they’d apparently forgotten to completely close the curtain before they left earlier, and the headlights from the frigid overpass outside streak over Quentin’s face. Eliot reaches forward to cup his cheek, tracing the tracks that the light makes with his thumb.

“For me,” Quentin continues, soft, not flinching under Eliot’s touch, “with Fillory, it was-- that the characters could escape, you know? In the world they knew, they were just-- nothing. It was wartime and bleak and lonely. And then one day they walk through a clock, and it’s just-- light. And color. And they’re everything they ever thought they-- they were supposed to be, you know?” 

_Heroes_ , Eliot thinks to himself. There’s nothing Q loves more than heroes.

He focuses on the scrape of Quentin’s stubble under his thumb, as he says, almost absently, “Nothing-- hurt her. She’d eat anyone alive who tried. _That’s_ what I liked about her.”

Eliot can feel Quentin’s frown as much as he can see it. “Because-- people. Hurt _you_ ,” he says.

_Oh, baby_ , Eliot wants to say. _Not the point_.

“Until I figured out how to hurt them first,” he says instead, gentle as he can. Thinking of Taylor with his bloody nose on the gymnasium floor. And the twelve consecutive birthdays where he hasn’t so much as texted his mother, who really just had the misfortune of being taught that she could keep her son or her God but not both, when you force yourself to look at the situation with a certain level of detachment. And all the fucking _lies_ he tells everyday. 

“You’re not-- you’re not the bad guy, here,” Quentin says, reaching out to rest his own hand on Eliot’s jaw. “You know that, right?”

_Maybe. But I’m not the hero, either_.

Eliot turns into Quentin’s hand-- even though he doesn’t _need_ that sort of comfort-- and kisses the callouses that Quentin’s keyboard leaves. Quentin sighs at the sensation, and that’s too much, _entirely_ too much. So Eliot rolls them both over, until Q is pinned beneath him, squirmy and wanting, and Eliot’s blocking the light from the window, so it can’t show him the expressions that cross Q’s pretty face. 

“ _Baby boy_ ,” he hisses into Quentin’s neck, when Quentin manages to get his hands beneath Eliot’s blazer and shirt, fingers curling into Eliot’s back. 

“Oh my God, you have to stop _saying_ that,” Quentin manages to get out between labored breaths, even as he continues to mouth at Eliot’s collarbones. That oral fixation of his really is _staggering._

“Or what?” Eliot challenges, knowing Quentin will be able to hear the smile in his voice, even if it’s too dark to see it. “What are you gonna do about it, Coldwater?”

“ _Fuck_ , you’re an asshole. Seriously, the _first_ time I saw you in front of that Hedgebucks-- I just-- God, I wanna--”

“Wanna what?” Eliot pushes, breathing the words directly into Quentin’s ear. And then, because he’s sadistic but not evil, he lays himself down like a bridge between what Q wants and what Q can _say_ , when they’re not yet _in flagrante_. “Want me to give it to you good and hard, baby boy, just the way you asked so nice yesterday?”

Quentin swallows so hard that Eliot can _hear_ it. At the same time, all the other little movements he’s been making-- the frustrated little rolls of his hips and the scratching of his hands down Eliot’s back-- stop. 

“Uh,” he says. “Actually, the, um. The other way around.”

As Quentin’s words-- disjointed but unflinching-- sink in, Eliot also stops moving. 

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, stupidly. 

The perceived hesitation is enough to make Quentin start backtracking, the words tripping over themselves in his rush to explain. “I don’t-- I mean, I love the way we’ve-- it’s all, it’s incredible. I just-- _also_ , you know? But we don’t have to, if you don’t--”

“No,” Eliot cuts in to reassure him. “No. I . . . “ He grabs Quentin’s hips, and pulls him in closer, trying to erase the distance that got introduced by inches as Quentin fidgeted and rambled. “That-- can be arranged.”

“Really?” 

Q sounds more skeptical than excited, and maybe Eliot should be offended by that, but in reality, it only makes him smile.

“Oh come on, Q,” he goads, with a roll of his eyes that’s really more for his own benefit, to distract from how dry his mouth has gone. “I’m not _that_ inflexible.” 

He punctuates the statement with a particularly deep arch of his back, which gets Quentin clambering hot-mouthed and flutter-fingered all over him. It’s only when Eliot’s lying on his stomach, and Quentin is crawling down his back, that Eliot realizes he-- may have miscalculated, here.

Okay, look. Eliot has long rejected the idea that there’s something inherently more vulnerable about getting fucked than fucking, because-- _hello_ , heteronormative, sexist bullshit. But-- apparently there _is_ something different about getting fucked by _Quentin_ , than fucking him. Because while it’s true that Eliot has, in the few days they’ve been doing this, yet to find a sexual position in which Quentin is anything other than eager and obliging and _kind_ (even when he’s biting Eliot hard enough to leave marks that still haven’t faded), Quentin has never been _this_ before. Not with Eliot, anyway. He’s pressing gentle, closed-mouth kisses into the middle of Eliot’s back that burn like a brand, and touching Eliot so carefully with wet, shivery fingers, and murmuring nonsense endearments into the dip of Eliot’s spine. As if Eliot is a timid little thing in need of gentle handling.

Eliot is shaking and sweating and just about to look back over his shoulder and tell Q, that _it’s okay, darling, you can just put it in now_ , when part of Q’s garbled litany finally cuts through the haze of pleasurable anticipation. 

“-- so good, El, I promise,” Q is saying. “I’ll be so sweet to you. That’s all you want, isn’t it? Someone to be sweet to you.” 

He opens his mouth to laugh at the very idea-- not meanly, because it’s a kind thought, a _Quentin_ thought, if an absurd one. But instead of the chuckle he expects, he’s shocked to hear his own voice gasping “ _yes_ ,” into the darkness.

_Oh_ , he only has time to think, before Quentin is repeating it-- “ _that’s all you really want_ ”-- and then sliding home. Eliot feels the soft ends of Quentin’s hair where he’s bent over Eliot’s back, and the hungry grip of his strong hands. He hears Q’s punched out little moans and the groaning of the mattress springs as Q guides them through the dance, achy and slow. But there’s something in Eliot’s chest-- something that makes him feel like he’s outside himself, like it’s someone else who’s burning up in the crucible of Q’s tenderness, and he’s only cataloguing it for research purposes. 

That’s how it seems, at least, until Quentin’s lips are on his shoulder blades, again, and Quentin’s whispering, “ _Shhh, it’s yours, it’s yours,_ ” into the slick skin. Which is because--

“ _I want-- I want it so much, Q, oh my God, Q,”_ he’s-- _oh_ , he’s sobbing. He’s _been_ sobbing, into the pillow that smells like Quentin’s hair, while Quentin moves inside him and treats him sweet. Oh God. _This_ . A million times he’s said it, a million little-- _lies_ , apparently-- about _boys who are mean to me_ , when really, he-- How did he not know? How did he not _know_?

Quentin nuzzles his nose between the knobs of Eliot’s vertebrae, then, and Eliot stops thinking at all, until they’re lying in the afterglow, Quentin’s protective arm across Eliot’s chest. Eliot cups his hand behind Quentin’s neck and kisses him, long and deep and grateful, until Quentin’s blissed-out hands start curling fitfully against Eliot’s chest. 

“I’m gonna use the bathroom,” Eliot says, evenly-- with a smile, even-- when they finally pull apart. He can feel Quentin’s smile against his fingertips when Quentin nods. 

When Eliot shuts the bathroom door behind him, he stands over the sink while his knees shake, and he tries to acclimate to the fact that-- at least when it comes to what he _wants_ \-- he’s actually been telling _three_ kinds of lies all these years.

The bald-faced ones.

The but-it-doesn’t-matter ones.

And the ones he didn’t even realize _were_ lies. The ones he even believed _himself_.

He splashes some water on his face and then cleans away the rest of their mess. He gathers two more towels-- one wet, one dry-- for Q, and makes his way back to the bed on legs that are still wobbling. 

Quentin is scrolling happily through something on his phone when Eliot reaches him. The light from the screen illuminates his smile even better than the headlights from the highway. It shows off the way the smile grows when he looks up to see Eliot.

_Oh_ , Eliot thinks one more time. Because with the truth of the third type of lie on the table, the scales have finally fallen from his eyes, or so it seems.

_I love you_ , he thinks, not all that surprisingly. And then, very surprisingly, _I think I might want you to love me, too_.

“Oh, hey,” Q says, eyes flitting back to his phone. “I was looking at the email about the tour. Did-- did you know the last city for the midwestern swing is Chicago?”

His voice is bright and excited at the prospect, and the confusion must be obvious on Eliot’s face, because when Q looks back up, his eyebrows pull together, and he swallows and adds, sheepish, “Oh, sorry, um. Chicago is-- where Alice teaches.”

Eliot doesn’t think he reacts visibly, at all, not even when Quentin’s expression goes far away and dreamy and he adds, “It’s-- it’ll be good to see her again.”

“Right,” Eliot says, nodding mechanically and cleaning Quentin off with careful hands. “Of course it will.”

“Do you want to go to bed?” Q asks, and Eliot manages not to scream. Because it’s not really Q he’s mad at. It’s not Q who momentarily forgot the fundamental truth that Eliot should _know_ , that he was so annoyed at Henry for forgetting earlier.

It’s the wrong question-- what does Eliot _want_ , even when Eliot knows the answer.

The real question, the _only_ question, is what can he fucking _get_. 


	7. Seven

*** * * * ***

**Seven**

*** * * * ***

**Brakebills Press, Inc. @BrakebillsPress** Jan 30

In honor of the end of the end of the tour tomorrow RT: @HarrietFuzzbeat Thirteen times Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh made us believe in true love . . . . whether they’re an item or not. @QMColdwater @SpectacularEliot #Queliot

**Benedict P. @MapmakerMakeMeAMap** Jan 30

@SpectacularEliot I love my friends and my family, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have just one person look at me the way you look at @QMColdwater. #babymonsters #queliot

**Eliot Waugh @SpectacularEliot** Jan 26

Obligatory snowstorm selfie with my two favorite long-haired mutts. [.jpg]

**MaRiRi23 @HeadWitchInCharge** Jan 30

Ok, #fortycirclesfam and #babymonsters i don’t even go here, and even i can see that this #Queliot thing is hella hot. Wifey’s away on business, so time for mama to pour herself a glass of red and scroll through some gifs. I’ll be in my bunk for the foreseeable future.

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Jan 31

1/ when did the #fortycirclesfam tag get so thirsty? like, sure, @QMColdwater and @SpectacularEliot would make a cute couple i guess

Show this thread

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Jan 31

2/ EXCEPT @QMCOLDWATER DOESN’T HAVE TIME TO GET TENDERLY DICKED DOWN BY HIS FUTURE HUSBAND BC HE’S SUPPOSED TO BE WRITING BOOK 3 #STILLwaitingforbook3 #morelikefortyCENTURIEStrilogy #queliot?

*****

The event is barely over. There’s still a crowd milling in the auditorium, and the grad student TA who’s on High King Margo duty for the night hasn’t even brought her back to Eliot yet, but Quentin seriously just, like, can’t wait.

He’s already waited longer than a person could reasonably be expected to, honestly, he thinks, as he gets two handfuls of Eliot’s ridiculously soft cardigan-- because  _ yeah _ , it’s a cardigan night.  _ And  _ a suspenders night. Which is just-- more than he should have to take. Someone who’s made of fucking  _ ice  _ would have given in sometime around when Eliot flicked open the top button of his immaculate white shirt, raising his eyebrows at Quentin while he did it. Someone who’s made of fucking  _ stone  _ would have broken down when Eliot got asked who his favorite contemporary fantasy author is and answered “Quentin M. Coldwater” without even  _ blinking. _ As it is, Quentin should get some kind of award for waiting until the applause has technically stopped before shoving Eliot as hard as he can into the empty hallway just behind the auditorium and sealing their mouths together.

Eliot’s arms come up around him automatically. Quentin kind of knew they would. Quentin may only know one thing about whatever the fuck he and Eliot are doing, but it’s that everytime he kisses Eliot, Eliot will kiss back like he’d die if he stopped.

Okay, that’s not totally fair. There are at least a few other things Quentin knows about their-- relationship? Extended hook-up? Super professional colleagues-with-benefits situation? Like that Eliot will tug Quentin into his arms at any place and any time, will play with his hair, and fuss with his coat, and blow on his hands to warm them up when they come in from the cold, but will pretty much never kiss Quentin first, unless they’re already, like, pants-less. He knows that Eliot has carted both sets of their luggage to the same hotel room at every place they’ve stopped since the Mosaic Inn, like it doesn’t even occur to him that they could sleep apart. He knows that Eliot melts when Quentin touches him softly and kisses the back of his neck, and that Eliot likes to pull his hair and call him a brat, and that Eliot kicks like a motherfucker in his sleep, and that the first thing Eliot does after he comes is pull Quentin closer-- even if their position makes that pretty much a scientific impossibility.

Quentin knows that no one has ever made him feel more wanted and welcome and  _ happy _ in his entire fucking life.

And he knows that Eliot has yet to say that he’s anything other than just--  _ peachy _ with the fact that, in 24 hours, this will all be over.

“ _ Mmph _ , Q--” Eliot says into Quentin’s mouth, around a smile. He’s sort of trying to extract himself from their kiss, but it’s not working all that well, because every time their lips separate, he leans back in to meet Quentin again, like he can’t help himself. Quentin isn’t exactly helping, either, but whatever. If Eliot expects Quentin to let him go easy  _ today _ , when he’s already going to have to do that tomorrow-- well. Not fucking happening.

“ _ Q _ ,” Eliot tries again, laughing as he does. Quentin can feel the curl of his lips against his own. “Someone might see.” 

Eliot does manage to pull away and stay away after that, but the distance is somewhat defeated by the fact that he has one hand braced tight around Quentin’s lower back, helping Quentin stay balanced on tiptoes, and his other hand is cradling the side of Quentin’s face, his thumb stroking back and forth over Quentin’s cheekbone. And he’s  _ looking  _ at Quentin, the way he does sometimes (a lot of times). Like Quentin is something precious. To  _ him _ .

It makes Quentin’s breath catch in his throat. It also makes him  _ stupid--  _ not that that’s, you know, all that far a walk, for him. It’s the reason he licks his lips, which still taste like Eliot’s, and asks, “So what if they do?” 

Eliot’s head tilts, and his eyebrows draw together. “ _ Q _ ,” he starts, sounding uncomfortable. Reproachful, even. And-- yeah, that’s. That’s enough to get even  _ Quentin  _ to quit before he embarrasses himself. 

_ You’re not overthinking it _ , he reminds himself.  _ You’re taking whatever pieces you can. Before it all ends _ .

“Right, sorry,” he says, lightly, settling back down on the flats of his feet. Eliot’s arm drops from around his back, but it feels-- reluctant, maybe? The hand that was on Quentin’s face migrates down to Quentin’s shoulder, squeezing lightly when Quentin shrugs.

“I just meant, you know, there’s not that much to worry about, since apparently the whole internet already thinks that we’re--  _ yeah. _ ” 

He doesn’t exactly nail the dismount, but Eliot doesn’t seem to mind, bending down to push at Quentin’s forehead with his nose, punctuating the nudge with a kiss to the temple. 

“Oh, is  _ that  _ what the kids are calling it these days?” he teases. “‘ _ Yeah _ ?’”

The roll of Quentin’s eyes is automatic and unfeigned. “Well, it’s not like I hear a lot of  _ no _ , from you, so.”

Eliot barks a laugh. “Are you  _ suggesting  _ that my Downton-Abbey-level demure-and-hard-to-get game has been anything less than  _ masterful _ ?” His nose migrates to Quentin’s hair, as he drapes one long arm around Quentin’s neck and uses it to start dragging him down the hall, toward High King Margo and the taxi that will take them to Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport and then to O’Hare and then to their separate lives.

“Please. You’re so fucking easy,” Quentin says. He means for the words to come out teasing and bitchy, the way that makes Eliot giggle. But something about the way Eliot is leaning into him so naturally, or the way his lips still haven’t left Quentin’s temple, makes the words come out genuine, instead.

Eliot pauses mid-step and looks down at Quentin with an unreadable expression on his face. Quentin feels a sudden stab of-- lots of things, actually. But mostly it’s a stab of  _ wondering _ . Wondering whether Eliot is thinking about the same thing Quentin is right now: five nights ago, the midnight drive between Pittsburgh and some enormous bookstore in the Philadelphia suburbs, the last of their long drives, before they started the compressed midwestern swing with its every-day plane rides that are turning Quentin’s hair gray but are still fucking worth it. They had just stopped at a drive-thru somewhere on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and it had felt like there was no one else on the road. Eliot’s Broadway playlist had turned to something old-fashioned-sounding, and Eliot had turned the volume up, crooning along while the high-masts shone down on him like a spotlight. He’d met Quentin’s gaze in the rearview mirror when he sang  _ you’d be so easy to love _ , then rolled his eyes and smirked. Quentin had rolled his own eyes back and turned to stare out the window, watching the mile markers pass and listening to El melt into the high notes and trying to understand why it is that he feels less like a chore than he ever has when Eliot is sighing and calling him impossible.

Eliot’s unreadable expression settles into a placid smile. “We’ll see how easy I am when I’m trying to get you to stop hyperventilating in mid-air,” he says, urging Quentin on.

Quentin groans into Eliot’s shoulder as they walk. “ _ Ugh _ , don’t remind me.”

“At least it’s the last time, hm?” Eliot says, jostling him even closer. 

His voice is completely neutral when he says it. He’s smiling even, eyebrows raised, like that fact is supposed to be  _ comforting _ to Quentin.

Quentin makes himself nod. “Yeah. Uh, thank God.”

Quentin imagines, for a moment, that Eliot’s arm tightens where it’s hooked over Quentin’s shoulder. But his smile never breaks. He just keeps walking them forward.

It turns out that the universe, or the weather patterns between the Twin Cities and Chicago, or fucking  _ fate  _ decides to make the last flight of the trip memorable. Or, you know, to make it the last thing any of them ever remember. There’s turbulence. Not a little. Enough that the drink cart can’t come around and the flight attendant makes an apologetic little announcement about where the barf bags are located, while Quentin’s focused more on the oxygen masks. And the emergency exits. And the life vests. But he gets through it, with Margo’s unimpressed weight in his lap. And with Eliot loosening Quentin’s collar with sure fingers and slipping a hand inside, laying his palm right over Quentin’s skittering heartbeat, and stage-whispering, “ _ I promise if I thought we were in any danger of actually dying I’d be sucking you off right now _ ,” while Quentin groan-laughs and hisses, “Jesus, will you please shut  _ up _ ,” and also presses his hand tighter over Eliot’s. 

The adrenaline that he builds up during the flight doesn’t really dissipate, even when they’re back on the ground in one piece. Quentin could literally kiss the grimy sidewalk outside O’Hare, where they wait for their Lyft, the leg that’s not holding most of his slumped weight vibrating like a jackhammer.

Eliot is the opposite. It’s like he deflated, the second the wheels touched down on the tarmac and the captain announced ‘Welcome to Chicago.’ He’s sitting on his suitcase, now, with High King Margo’s travel bag across his lap, his eyes fixed on the curb. He’s almost slouching. 

The posture is so atypical, and so vulnerable, that Quentin feels a sudden, uncharacteristic surge of guilt. Well, uncharacteristic where his relationship with Eliot is concerned; it’s actually  _ really  _ fucking characteristic for the rest of his life. 

_ Thank you _ , he wants to say,  _ for putting up with me this whole month, for acting like it’s not exhausting _ . But that feels too pathetic even for him.

“Four minutes,” he says gently instead, going for encouraging. “‘Til our driver gets here.” 

Eliot glances up and offers a worn smile. When he drops his head back down, the wind catches the flaps of the plaid coat--  _ Burberry _ , Quentin’s been informed-- that Eliot hadn’t bothered to button, and Eliot pretends not to shiver.

With a sigh, Quentin walks over to him, unwinding the long, purple scarf around his neck as he goes. Chicago’s not as cold as Minnesota was, honestly, and he has Julia’s beanie and the huge, ridiculous Fair Isle print mittens that Eliot had picked up for him at a rest stop, after Quentin had confessed about his dad’s gloves and the fear of ruining all that’s left. The chill that goes through him as soon as the scarf is off has less to do with the wind against his neck and more to do with the fact that it’s only once the scarf is in his hands that he realizes he’ll probably ( _ definitely _ ) never feel the warm, heavy wool against his neck again.

It’s too late to do anything about that now-- not that there’s much that he  _ could  _ have done, anyway-- so he makes himself complete the gesture he’d already started, leaning down to trail the scarf around Eliot’s neck. Eliot doesn’t look up until Quentin places a hand on his shoulder and says, “You looked cold.”

Eliot’s eyes are red-- from being out in the wind. Quentin wants to cup his cheek, but the hand on Eliot’s shoulder won’t budge, for some reason, so Quentin just squeezes it instead and quirks a little, off-center smile. 

“I’ve owed you this back for a while, huh?” 

The question is mostly just meant as something to  _ say _ , the kind of soothing background-noise patter that Eliot is so good at keeping up when Quentin is feeling drained. But for, like, half a second, Eliot’s eyes go hot and dismal-- or at least, that’s what Quentin imagines. It must be a trick of the overhang’s lights, because an instant later, Eliot looks back down and tugs both ends of the scarves lightly. 

“This is entirely the wrong knit to go with this coat,” he says, tossing one end jauntily over his shoulder anyway. “Not that I’d expect you to know that.”

Quentin rolls his eyes and turns back toward the street just in time to see their car pulling up to the curb. Eliot perks up enough to load all the luggage (minus Margo’s bag, obviously) into the trunk, but he’s quiet again once they’re settled into the backseat. If Quentin hadn’t realized how tired Eliot was before, it would be obvious from the way he collapses back against the headrest-- despite the number of times he’s lectured Quentin on the horrors that lurk in communal upholstery. He has his head angled away from Quentin, looking out the window. He’s burrowed down into the wrong-knit scarf in a way that makes Quentin wonder if he can still smell it, the cloves-and-smoke-and-snow scent that seemed to Quentin to have faded beyond detection in the last week or so, buried beneath the nondescript sweat-and-detergent of everything else that lives in Quentin’s suitcase.

“Did you make plans with Alice?”

Quentin almost doesn’t hear the question over the humming of the talk radio station. He manages not to sigh in response.

“Yeah. She’s-- going to come to the reading tomorrow, I think. And she mentioned maybe getting dinner after.”

Eliot’s still angled away, but Quentin can see him nod against the seatback. “Good. That’ll be nice for you two.”

Quentin thinks it will be, too-- although not in the way that Eliot is probably trying to insinuate. He  _ hopes _ it will be, anyway. Hopes that it can be more than uncomfortable memories and a rejection that won’t stop stinging, now that it’s been years and Alice is a a Nobel shortlister and Quentin gets  _ paid  _ to live in his fantasy world, and now that Quentin’s endless longing-- the thing that always came between them-- is firmly lodged elsewhere. He’s-- it’s probably stupid, but he wants to-- talk to her. Not for her blessing, exactly. But just-- so that she knows. About the end of the trilogy that  _ she  _ inspired.

Before he  _ finally _ sends his draft to Jane. 

“Are you going to tell her about book three?” Eliot asks. Because he knows, since Ithaca, about the finished draft that’s been hiding for months on Quentin’s computer. Because he’s the _ only _ person in the world except for Quentin himself who knows-- until tomorrow anyway. 

Quentin swallows. “Yeah, um. I want to.” 

“She’ll love the ending. So will Jane. Everyone will.” 

It makes something in Quentin’s chest want to burst, every time Eliot believes in him so effortlessly, like it doesn’t occur to him that Quentin could just-- break down and fall apart and never write another word again, never do anything but wander around in the darkness again. But in all fairness, Quentin himself kind of can’t imagine never writing again, at the moment. Not when he feels like his brain is on  _ fire _ , almost, with everything he has to say, everything that he’s been trying to type furtively into his laptop while Eliot is in the shower, or walking High King Margo, or scribbling attractively across his own collection of odds-and-ends papers, like the good capital-R Romantic he cosplays most days. 

“You don’t know that. You haven’t even read it,” Quentin protests, trying to keep the bursting feeling in check. 

“I don’t need to read it,” Eliot answers, simply. “I know who wrote it.”

Eliot doesn’t seem to have anything else to say after that, and Quentin can’t quite remember how to make his lips move, so they ride in silence the rest of the way to their hotel. It’s a more comfortable silence than before, without the sharp edge of whatever mood had struck Eliot outside the airport. 

They fall back into familiar roles once the car pulls up in front of their hotel-- so much so that Quentin is caught off guard when Eliot disrupts the routine by stopping just a few feet from the doorway.

“I-- think I really need a smoke,” he says. His voice is easy, if still tired, but he’s eyeing the lobby entrance like it might bite. 

The night is still cold, but it’s not awful, and the street their hotel is on is in the theater district and active even this late, filled with couples walking together in duffel coats and lights sparking off the  _ Hamilton  _ marquee across the way. Quentin’s ready to say that he’ll wait out here with Eliot, when Eliot pushes Quentin’s rolling suitcase toward him. 

“Would you mind handling check-in?” he asks, almost too casually. “I’ll just-- pick up my key when I’m done.” 

Quentin frowns, but nods. “O- okay.” 

The hotel is historic and kind of awesome, actually, with painted ceilings and a swanky bar in the middle of the lobby that Eliot would have looked right at home in, pretty much any day in the past one hundred fifty years or whatever that it’s been around. Quentin hunches his shoulders all the way to the elevator. When he rolls in, he punches the number for the (pet-friendly) room that had been booked in Eliot’s name, assuming that’s the one that the reception desk will give Eliot the key for. 

The room’s nice enough. It’s even better once Quentin has shucked off his clothes and ducked under the shower just long enough to wet his hair, and he slides beneath the crisp white sheets wearing a t-shirt and flannel pants. Eliot hasn’t come up yet, and Quentin’s still feeling fired up and fizzy, so he opens his laptop, navigating his way to the folder that he’d gotten Rafe in the Brakebills IT department to show him how to encrypt almost a year ago. But instead of pulling up the document that had been the folder’s only occupant for so long, he clicks on the new document that joined it just a week or two ago, but that’s been growing steadily in size ever since.

He loses track of time once the document is open-- which is usual for him, on good days. He’s not sure how long he’s been at it when the door cracks open, only that it can’t have been _ too  _ long, because his hair’s still mostly damp. 

Then he looks up and amends the thought. Because any length of time is too long, and isn’t that just the bitch of it. 

Eliot curses as he finagles his bags into the room, turning sideways to keep Margo’s carrier from banging into the door. But he smiles, relieved and a little uncertain, when he sees Quentin, like the nicotine cleared his head-- if not his lungs. He’s still quiet, though, as he unzips Margo’s bag and lets her hop down, into the little nest of extra blankets that Quentin already set up just past the end of the king size bed. He takes his coat off like it’s made of lead, then the purple scarf, coiling it like a snake and setting it on top of his suitcase. 

He slips off his shoes and pads over to Quentin’s side of the bed, collapsing heavily on the edge. “Sorry I’ve been in a shitty mood,” he says, glancing back at Quentin over his shoulder, then scrubbing his hands over his dark stubble. “I’m fucking exhausted.”

Quentin sits up and rests his laptop on the bedside table, careful to close the lid and conceal its contents from view. “You’re allowed to be,” he says, drawing his arm across Eliot’s chest and perching his chin on Eliot’s shoulder. 

Eliot exhales and leans back against Quentin’s chest. “Can we just go to bed?”

There’s a probably really problematic part of Quentin that feels a twinge of disappointment at the idea of ‘just’ going to bed, when they have hours left to spend with each other. But that part pales in comparison to the part that remembers the way that Eliot had wrung him out so hard--  _ twice _ \-- last night that he’d chuckled, breathless, after, and teased about whether he was being sent off to a war he didn’t know about, until Eliot had tweaked his nipples and sucked at his ragged pulse until he’d relented and cried for mercy. And the part that can feel Eliot’s lethargy in the way he’s relying on Quentin to hold him up right now. And the part that knows full fucking well that he’ll miss falling asleep beside Eliot just as badly as he misses falling apart with Eliot, once the timer hits zero. 

“C’mon,” he says, helping Eliot shift forward and shrug out of his cardigan. By the time Eliot’s down to his dark-purple briefs, he flops back on the bed, eyes closed, smiling as he lets Quentin pull off his probably Italian wool socks. 

“D’you want me to get your pajamas out of the suitcase?” Quentin asks.

Eliot just shakes his head against the mattress, and holds his arms out. Quentin can only go to them. 

“Were you writing?” Eliot asks, once he’s curled into a ball smaller than a person as tall as him should be able to make, his tousled curls spilling across Quentin’s shoulder. 

Quentin nods, knowing that Eliot will be able to feel it. 

“I didn’t meant to interrupt,” Eliot says, sounding even smaller than his shape, in a way that breaks Quentin’s heart, a little. “You can go back to it, if you want. Just . . . “

He trails off, and Quentin almost smiles, almost asks,  _ are you asking me to hold you until you fall asleep?  _ But he doesn’t, because he doesn’t want to tease if that  _ is _ what Eliot wants, and he doesn’t want to say anything at all if it’s not. Instead, he just shushes Eliot and strokes a hand up and down his curved spine, tapping all the words he’ll write out once Eliot’s snoring into bare skin. 

When they wake up the next day, Eliot is once again bright-tailed and bushy-eyed, to use one of Dad’s old chestnuts. Quentin himself is mostly focused on trying not to be weird. In other words, trying not to act like it’s the last morning shower, and the last morning walk, and the last pretending-not-to-watch-Eliot-line-his-eyes, and the last frappuccino-and-tea run-- even though it is. By the time they’re in the Popper & Noble near Grant Park for the final event of the tour, waiting in a little side office while the at-capacity crowd settles in, it’s nearly a relief when his cell phone lights up with a call from Julia, and he can take a second to breathe out the tension that’s settled in his sternum.

“Hey, Jules,” he says, after he slips into some kind of utility hallway leading to a storage area. “What’s up?”

“ _ Q!”  _ Jules’ voice is enthusiastic and the tiniest bit slurred on the line, like she’s had maybe three glasses of wine instead of her usual two. “ _ Kady, it’s Q _ !” she says, a little farther from the speaker. Quentin can hear Kady’s low chuckle at a farther distance still. 

“Sounds like you’re having a good night,” Quentin answers, one side of his mouth quirking up. “I’m guessing you’re not, uh, on Rachel Maddow tonight or anything?”

Julia snorts. “ _ No, just fundraisers this afternoon. Kady let me have the night off so we’re watching Erin Brockovich and drinking scotch _ .”

“You hate scotch.”

“ _ Compromise, Q, _ ” Julia intones gravely, in what he gathers is supposed to be a version of her stump-speech voice. “ _ We can never forget the value of compromise, even in the face of our unflinching moral commitments _ .” 

Quentin hears a noise like two glasses clinking together, before Julia speaks again. “ _ Anyway, we wanted to call to say good luck before the reading starts. It’s the end of the tour! Can you believe it? _ ”

Just like that, the tightness in Quentin’s chest is back. “Yeah, um. Crazy, right? But, um-- how is-- tell me how the campaign is going? Any big developments this week?”

He hears Kady’s ungracious snort before Julia’s answer. “ _ Funny you should ask. That sort of-- remains to be seen? _ ”

Quentin pauses and leans his shoulder against the cinderblock wall. “How so?”

Julia sighs, some of her own liquid ease dissipating. “ _ We’ve been hearing that some other representatives in the caucus are putting pretty heavy pressure on Fox. _ ”

“What kind of pressure?”

_ “To step aside. Before the primary.” _

“Wow. Shit. That’s-- um. That’s a good thing, right? I mean, is that what you would want?”

“ _ I want to serve this district _ ,” Julia answers automatically, as she always does. “ _ And I want him to not be in Congress anymore. But I also kind of want to  _ beat _ him, independent of both of those things, if that makes sense? I want him to know that the people listened to his case and they listened to mine, and they chose  _ me _. They believed  _ me. _ ” _

Quentin’s gotten to experience it day in and day out for almost twenty years now, but Julia’s courageousness never stops taking his breath away. It never stops shaming him, too-- that Julia is willing to risk a fair fight with the rich, powerful piece of shit who tried to literally destroy her, and Quentin’s too worried to even tell the boy he likes that he doesn’t want them to be over when this tour ends. Seriously, a _hundred_ Congressional seats, and a thousand fans in Lady Tree headdresses, will never be enough of a testament to his best friend’s strength. 

“ _ But hey-- we can talk about all of that when you’re home _ ,” Julia continues, her voice brooking no argument. “ _ We want to know what you’re planning for the last night of the tour! Are you finally going to put tumblr out of its misery and just french Eliot live on stage?” _

“ _ Jesus _ , Jules,” Quentin whispers, walking farther down the hall, even though logically he knows that no one can hear her through the speaker but him. “We’re not-- it’s not--”

“ _ Like that?”  _ she fills in, just as Quentin says, “-- public.” 

Shit. 

“ _ Wait. What? Oh my God,  _ Q _!”  _ Julia gasps, a little bit scolding and a lot intrigued. “ _ Are you  _ actually  _ fucking Eliot Waugh? _ ”

In the background, Quentin can hear Kady grunt out, “ _ Come on, J. You’ve _ seen  _ Waugh’s twitter profile. Every one of his recent tweets is a picture of Quentin holding the dog with some variation of ‘my two favorites’ as the caption. They’re  _ so  _ fucking. _ ”

Quentin has seen those tweets, too. He scrolls through them with borderline religious fervor when he’s sure Eliot’s not looking. Depending on his mood, he scrutinizes them to either prove or disprove the foundering hypothesis that Quentin is  _ special  _ to Eliot, that he’s not just another of the charged-up little strays that Eliot can’t seem to stop himself from taking in, from High King Margo to the kids who email him after events, several of whom-- Fray from Vermont, Fen from Manhattan-- Quentin knows he stays in regular email contact with.

“Her name is High King Margo the Destroyer,” Quentin says, quietly. “Not ‘the dog.’”

It’s as good as an admission.

“ _ So, wait. What does this mean?”  _ At the investigative turn in Julia’s tone, Quentin feels a sudden stab of sympathy for all of the people that he has no doubt will one day be staring at her from across a table at a committee hearing. “ _ Are you like a secret couple, or--? _ ”

“No,” Quentin insists, ignoring the throb in his chest as he says it. “No, it’s just like-- a casual thing.”

“ _ Q _ ,” Julia retorts, unimpressed. “ _ You don’t  _ do  _ casual.” _

“Yeah, well, apparently Eliot does.” He tries to keep the bitterness out of his voice, probably doesn’t succeed. It’s not Eliot’s fault; he’s never promised Quentin anything, not even when he’s clutching at Quentin like Quentin’s skin against his is the only that keeps him breathing.

Quentin’s failure is obvious in Julia’s long, slow exhale over the line. “ _ Oh _ ,” she says, so softly it hurts. “ _ You  _ love _ him. _ ”

And there they are. The words that have been echoing through Quentin, that he’s tried his best not to hear, that he’s tried to  _ write _ away, if nothing else. It figures it would take Julia, who never runs away from anything, to pull them out into the light. 

“ _ Q _ ,” Julia is saying over the line, as Quentin scrunches his eyes tight, like there’s still any hiding from this. “ _ Does he  _ know?”

Quentin knows his snort is closer to sad than dismissive. “You figured it out in thirty seconds. We’ve been fucking--  _ living  _ together for a month. What do you think?”

Julia doesn’t say anything for a long beat. Quentin turns so that his forehead is pressed against the cold cinderblock wall, the phone still at his ear. 

He braces himself for her pity, which will maybe be nicer than the intense  _ lack _ of pity he’s been giving himself about all of this. 

“ _ I think you’re not always as easy to read as you think you are _ ,” she finally says, cryptically. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asks, eyebrows pulling together.

“ _ Just that-- I know you  _ really _ well, right? Like, remember-when-you-used-to-put-braids- in-your-bowlcut well? _ ”

“Oh, good,” he interjects, “this conversation wasn’t fucking embarrassing enough without bringing our seventh grade yearbook into it.” 

Even from 800 miles away, he can feel her smile. He wishes he could give one back.

“ _ I’m just saying that I know you better than  _ anyone _ , and I didn’t see this coming, like  _ at all.  _ I mean, obviously, I could tell you had a little crush, but I had no clue you were  _ serious _ about him. _ ” 

Which-- is not what Quentin expects to hear. Because he  _ knows  _ how fucking obvious he’s been. Obvious enough that a couple thousand twitter users can see how Quentin clings to Eliot and the way that Eliot soaks up that affection and radiates it back, and have drawn the wrong conclusion. The one that, yeah, maybe it looks like, on the surface, but only if you don’t  _ know _ . That Eliot’s been starved for kindness his whole life by the assholes that never deserved him even for a second, and that instead of making him shitty, it’s only made him  _ hungry-- _ to care and be cared for. 

But it doesn’t mean any more than that, it doesn’t mean a  _ relationship _ \-- not to Eliot, anyway. Because  _ Eliot _ ’s the one who said not to overthink it.  _ Eliot _ ’s the one who never kisses first.  _ Eliot _ ’s the one who keeps bringing up  _ Alice _ , for Christ’s sake, like Quentin will take his pesky feelings back if he gets reminded of his  _ last  _ doomed love often enough. Even though  _ Eliot _ ’s also the one who holds Quentin while Quentin confesses things he honestly never imagined sharing with Alice even on their best days, and Eliot’s the one who  _ feels  _ the way that Quentin loses his breath every time they touch, and Eliot  _ has  _ to know what that means. He  _ has  _ to.

“How did you not know?” Quentin asks, sounding as confused as he feels.

There’s another pause over the line, and then Julia says, softer, “ _ Honestly, I sort of always assumed that you were still hung up on _ \--”

“Q!” 

Eliot’s unmistakable voice startles Quentin so badly he nearly drops the phone. Instead, he manages to mumble a quick signoff over Julia’s “ _ Holy shit, is that him? _ ” before whirling around to face Eliot. 

“Sorry,” Eliot says, his eyebrows pinching just slightly as he takes in Quentin’s super fucking suspicious countenance. “They’re ready for us to go in.” 

Quentin nods, too quickly; he can tell it’s too quickly. 

“Are you-- okay?” Eliot asks, coming a step closer. His hand comes to hover just an inch or so from Quentin’s chest, like it’s not sure of its welcome.

_ Can you really not know _ ? Quentin thinks, daring for just a moment to imagine a different reason for Eliot’s uncharacteristic hesitance to make a move first, his constant references to Alice, before shoving the idea aside. Quentin has been broadcasting everything he feels for Eliot since the moment he first kissed Eliot. If Eliot had any interest in lifting the moratorium he put in place that night on--  _ overthinking  _ what they are, he could have done it a thousand times over by now. 

“I’m-- yeah, I’m fine,” Quentin says, tucking his phone into the pocket of his khakis. “Just-- Julia says to break a leg. Or whatever, like, the book-tour equivalent is. For our last night.”

Eliot’s smile freezes in place at  _ last night  _ and Quentin pushes  _ himself _ away from the wall and past Eliot to get away from the dumb fucking thoughts that the talk with Julia put in his head. 

“We better, um--” he starts to say, but he’s stopped-- his words _ and _ his steps-- by Eliot’s hand on the bend of his elbow, turning him back around. 

Eliot doesn’t say anything, once Quentin is facing him once more, but his face goes resolute all over, as he steps into Quentin’s space and takes Quentin’s face between his hands. From the fierce look in his burning hazel eyes, Quentin half expects whatever happens next to  _ hurt _ . And it  _ does  _ hurt, but in the gentlest way possible, when Eliot comes even closer and presses his mouth against Quentin’s, firm but delicate, while syrupy-slow seconds of the hours they have left tick away.

When he pulls back, his eyes are bruise-tender and Quentin can’t speak. 

“Sorry,” Eliot almost-whispers in the space between them, his smile lost and wistful. 

He’s down the hall and walking through the door before Quentin can ask what the hell he has to be sorry for. 

Quentin tries to put the kiss-- and the question-- out of his mind, while the moderator gives introductions and the crowd applauds. The thought is always  _ there _ , though-- even though it’s not-- it’s  _ not _ . It  _ can’t _ be. It’s just the jester hat that Quentin is always fucking wearing, that’s making him ask what if Julia’s right, what if Eliot doesn’t  _ know, _ what if Eliot said sorry for kissing Quentin like he  _ loves _ him because he doesn’t think he’s allowed to. 

Quentin has almost got the idea stuffed back in the box where his feelings for Alice used to live, and where his feelings for Julia lived before that, the one labeled  _ if they felt that way about anyone, it wouldn’t be  _ you, when Eliot stands up and walks over to the podium to do his half of the reading. He’s all in indigo and black tonight, right down to his pocket square and the heavy ring on this thumb-- the one that had felt cool and smooth against Quentin’s skin when Eliot had cupped Quentin’s face in his hands. He’s probably going for, like, Disney villainess, but to Quentin it looks a lot like mourning. And no villain has ever kissed anyone as gently as Eliot just kissed Quentin, anyhow. No hero, either, if Quentin’s being honest.

Eliot is reading from chapter six, like he always does: Monster Boy’s first time, with the bully that makes his life hell. He reads it like he’s bored and like it’s hilarious-- which it is, actually, if your definition of humor extends to ripping your own guts out, which Eliot’s evidently does. He’s draped over the podium for show, with most of his weight on one arm, the other gesturing fluidly while his eyebrows go up and down. Quentin looks at the crisp cuff of his silky paisley shirt, and thinks about Eliot’s face, perfectly smooth and untroubled, when he told Quentin in bed a week and a half ago about rat tails and batting cages and how the wire of the cage had ripped a chunk out of the old plaid shirt Eliot had worn the night that he snuck out of the house to collect a little bit of closeness from someone who used to dropkick his backpack while he was still wearing it for shits and giggles. 

And Quentin finds himself wishing, so  _ fucking  _ bad, that it had been  _ him  _ instead of Logan Fucking Kinear, who met Eliot in the batting cages that night. Not because Eliot wasn’t allowed to have a life before him. (Not because Eliot isn’t allowed to have a life  _ after  _ him.) But because he would have-- Jesus, he would have been  _ nice _ to Eliot. 

_ I wouldn’t have had any fucking clue what I was doing _ , he thinks as hard as he can, like it’s a promise.  _ But-- but,  _ baby boy, _ I would have been  _ really _ nice to you. _

Eliot looks up just then and glances over at Quentin, like he can tell Quentin is thinking about him. He knows his own words well enough that he doesn’t even need to stop reading. He just watches Quentin and smiles, sweet and helpless, with those same sad eyes, and suddenly Quentin knows what he has to do.

He spent his whole childhood wanting to be a hero, and his whole adolescence hating himself for not being one. He doesn’t  _ need  _ that anymore; he really doesn’t. But what he  _ does  _ need is for Eliot to know how-- how  _ loved  _ he is, whatever the cost. Just-- if there’s any chance that he  _ doesn’t  _ know, that that sad little smile is because he doesn’t realize that Quentin  _ adores  _ him, Quentin just-- can’t let it go unspoken any longer. 

The conviction carries Quentin through the rest of the event, making it go by in a blur, until the moderator announces they only have time for one more question. One of Quentin’s fans takes the handheld mic and rises from their seat, and Quentin registers just from the nervous furrow of their brow that they’re about to ask about book three. Eliot is already leaning in to intercept, to protect Quentin, because he always is. But when the question finally comes, Quentin beats him to it.

“Um, it’s, um, going-- really well, actually,” he says, fumbling mostly because of how fast he’s speaking-- faster than he’s ever answered  _ this  _ question, that’s for fucking sure. He makes himself slow down. Pushes his hair behind his ears, and tries not to think about the eyebrows-raised look of shock that he can see on Eliot’s face out of the corner of his eye, or the murmur that rushes through the crowd. “Really, really well,” he adds. “There’s, um, there’s a full draft, actually.”

The murmur gets closer to a roar at that. He can see people people wearing shirts with his words on them turning to each other with excitement lighting up their faces. It makes him think of him and Julia, geeking out about all the things they loved, once upon a time. It sets off a pang of something like regret in his throat, for holding this back-- holding himself back-- from people like him, who need this, for so long. 

“Oh my God, that’s awesome,” the questioner is saying, eyes wide and delighted. “Um. Did-- did something inspire you lately, or . . . ?”

The kid looks not all that subtly toward Eliot and Quentin almost laughs and says,  _ God, you don’t know how right you are _ .

“Uh, sort of,” he says, instead. “So-- for. For a long a time, I was-- I didn’t really  _ want  _ to be finished book three, you know? Because. Because-- what would come after that, right?”

Not the most articulate answer he’s ever given (not the least articulate, either--  _ Jesus _ ), but he sees nodding in the audience and it feels-- really good, actually, to  _ see _ the support on people’s faces, instead of just wondering whether it would be there, if he told them. There’s one face he really wants to see, though, and it’s not in the crowd; it’s right beside him. But he doesn’t think he can risk turning to look at  _ him _ right now. 

“I guess--” he pushes his hair back again, exhales. Smiles, even if it’s really damn shaky and kind of punch-drunk. Because he’s doing this. Because fuck his insecurity, if Eliot needs this from him. And if Eliot  _ doesn’t  _ need this, if it’s not what Eliot wants to hear, if this is just him playing the fool all over again-- well. That’ll only make him as shitty a hero as Eliot is a villain, won’t it?

“I guess, I’m not as afraid of what happens next, now,” he admits. “And mostly that’s-- well, it’s for kind of a lot of reasons, actually.” 

It’s because of Julia and the memory of his dad, and Jane (in spite of herself, sometimes), and therapy and meds and the house in Montclair, and Brakebills, and-- and,  _ yeah _ , Fillory,  _ always _ , no matter how much the reality of its creation disappoints him. It’s because of  _ himself _ . But it’s also because of something else, too. 

“But-- but part of the reason, anyway,” he continues, “is because-- I-- I  _ know  _ now. What I want the next chapter to look like. For me. Who-- who I want to be there.”

He looks out into the crowd, because he can’t look at Eliot, not right now. When he does, he finally notices that Alice is here; she made it. She’s sitting in the third row in a cute little pink and gray coat and, instead of the awkwardness that’s surrounded her memory in Quentin’s mind for years, it feels  _ right _ that she should be here, that she should be a part of this. Because Quentin was-- well, he wasn’t  _ wrong  _ back then, when he thought he needed her back so badly, but he’s different now. He  _ doesn’t  _ actually want to live his life as the sidekick she never asked him to be. He wants-- he wants his _ own  _ story, with its useless non-hero who breaks shit sometimes and its sweet, shattered, lying monster, and the million journeys they take, and the insults they trade, and the secrets that they tell to only each other. But all the same, Alice-- or his dream of Alice, his Vix-- is what started him on this path, and it’s-- he’s happy that she’s here to see where maybe it will lead.

He smiles at her. She smiles back. 

“I know what I want now,” he repeats, to the crowd at large, still not looking at Eliot-- because baby steps, okay?

He breathes out and thinks,  _ why the fuck not?  _ Then he says it.

“I know  _ who _ I want. Who I-- who I  _ love _ .” 

There’s a second, just after he says, it when it feels like he’s flying-- like he did what he came for and nothing else matters now. Like Vix after she kills the Beast, or Lady Tree after she takes her former mentor’s place on the Kingdom Council. But there is something-- some _ one _ \-- that matters a whole fucking lot right now. That means everything, in fact.

He’s been putting it off through this whole impromptu declaration, but he can’t avoid it any longer. So he makes himself turn slowly toward Eliot.  _ El.  _ The man he loves.

When their eyes meet, his stomach falls to the floor.

_ Oh my God _ , he thinks.  _ I really am a fucking fool. _

“Same question, I guess, for Mr. Waugh,” the person with the microphone is saying, the words sounding to Quentin like they’re wrapped in cotton, fuzzy and far away. It feels impossible to him that anyone in this room, anyone in this  _ world _ , could be unaware of the way that Eliot is just--  _ staring _ at Quentin, like he’s so fucking-- disappointed and betrayed. “Do you know what’s next for Monster Boy?”

Eliot doesn’t answer right away. He just keeps looking at Quentin with those raw, empty eyes. Which is unfair. It’s  _ really  _ unfair, and it half makes Quentin want to scream, even though-- yeah, Quentin’s the one who just broke their unwritten rules, okay? He’s the one who had the fucking-- temerity to bring  _ feelings  _ into it, this thing where they pretend like it’s a totally standard hookup that, you know, just happens to involve Eliot calling Quentin’s name like a prayer every single fucking time he comes and memorizing Quentin’s tea preferences. But it also more-than-half makes Quentin want to reach out and soothe where Eliot’s jaw is clenched so tight, because that’s the kind of sucker he’s always been.

The silence has been going on too long, Quentin realizes, and the mood of the room is shifting, noticing, finally. Eliot opens his mouth once, but no sound comes out, and Quentin knows how Eliot must have felt, all those nights of the tour, watching Quentin struggle to answer a simple question. 

_ I should do something _ , he thinks, but he’s done enough already, hasn’t he? He’s done more than Eliot ever wanted him to.

Eliot pulls himself together before Quentin can come up with some half-assed save, anyway. Between one second and the next, his posture shifts, and the skinned-alive look disappears, that trademark bored smile taking its place. 

“What’s next for Monster Boy?” he repeats, angling away from Quentin, like it’s not hard for him, being separated. Like it doesn’t tear his heart out. “Oh, just-- more of the same, I guess,” he breezes out. 

Like it never mattered to him at all. 

Quentin tries to catch Eliot after the event, because he has to, but Eliot is too quick and too motivated to get away from him. He begs off of dinner with Alice, which she accepts with good grace and the promise that they’ll be better about emailing. He probably annoys the  _ shit  _ out of his taxi driver, as he urges him to drive faster back to the hotel. 

But it doesn’t make a difference, in the end. Because by the time he gets back to the hotel room, there’s no cavalcade of products covering the bathroom counter, no dog blankets, no trunks of secondhand designer clothes, no napkins and notepads and cupholders covered in Eliot’s loopy handwriting. It’s completely empty, except for his own luggage--

\--and one purple scarf, curled up, lonely, in the middle of the bed. 


	8. Eight

*** * * * ***

**Eight**

*** * * * ***

**Brakebills Press, Inc. @BrakebillsPress** Feb 10

Oh. Em. Gee. #queliot

**Benedict P. @MapmakerMakeMeAMap** Feb 10

OMG!!!!! #queliot 

**Hyman Cool-per @goodoldfashionedastralboy** Feb 10

OMG >: (

**MaRiRi23 @HeadWitchInCharge** Feb 10

Damnnnnnnnnnn #queliot 

**Just Like A Bad Penny @worldstraveller40** Feb 10

Damn, @QMColdwater. 

**Emily Greenstreet-Mayakovsky @NightsinAntarctica** Feb 10

hot damn, #queliot!

**Fen Just Fen @crabwithaknife** Feb 10

OMG u guys i was there i saw the whole thing it was SO!!!! BEAUTIFUL!!!! #queliot

**Changeling Fray @lionstigersmostlybears** Feb 10

OMG yay for Papa Monster #babymonsters #queliot

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Feb 10 

omg!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #fortycirclesfam #thewaitisOVER

Show this thread

**Pete @LoveLadyTree** Feb 10

wait is this about book 3, or did i miss something?

*****

“Well, Mr. Waugh. Have you given any additional thought to the ending?”

Henry’s I-already-know-where-we’re-headed-but-let’s-dance-the-steps-all-the-same voice is no less sonorous in person than it is on the phone. It is, however, accompanied in person by that peculiar dead-eyed stare which Eliot had nearly forgotten while he was tucked away in the wilds of the Greater Northeast. Tucked away _safely_ , he should say, in the gentlest place he’s ever-- well. Not so safely as one might hope, it turns out. But no matter. Eliot is resilient. He’s gotten through thirty years largely unwanted and unneeded, after all. There’s no reason for this latest rejection to require him to break out the sackcloth. To the contrary, he’s as fabulous as he’s ever been, can’t you tell? And if you can, would you be a dear and tell _him_ , so that he might actually start to believe it?

Ah. Hm. Where was he?

Oh-- that _stare_ , yes. Very off-putting. It’s the _stare_ , Eliot is certain, that makes Henry’s question particularly difficult to answer. 

(Spoilers: it’s not the stare.)

Down to business, then. Eliot flips automatically through his possible responses, because he could do this shit in his sleep, of course. Which is a lucky thing, because he’s about halfway there as it is, having decided for the eighth day in ten to devote the night before not to risking whatever fresh hell his dreams would throw at him, but to making Poor Choices On The Internet. Which, as per usual, had consisted mostly of compulsively refreshing the twitter page that Quentin literally never updates and telling himself that the radio silence means that Q is currently experiencing the reunited bliss that he so amply deserves with his longed-for Vix, notwithstanding (or perhaps evidenced by) the corresponding lack of activity on @AQuinnUChicago’s official page and on a tumblr account that seems to be primarily focused on dressage that Eliot knows with about 75% certainty, for reasons he’s not proud of, belongs to the good Professor Quinn. 

Q _must_ be shacking up with Alice, making lots of sweetly uptight, how-did-we-live-without-this-for-nearly-a-decade ( _how do I live without this forever_ ?) whoopie, you see. He _must_ . The alternative, which is impossible, is that it’s _not_ lying-- that sniveling little piece of Eliot that keeps wobble-whispering that _he_ was the one that Quentin kept warm all January, that Quentin told first about book three, that maybe maybe maybe Quentin _meant_ when he said ‘who I love’ in front of that packed crowd, so tenderly, all while smiling beatifically at his ex. But no. _No_ . That’s not possible. It’s not possible, because Eliot is not what Quentin would pick, not what _anyone_ would pick, not when they have the choice. And in any event, the alternative would mean that Eliot had left Quentin high and dry in Chicago without so much as a-- so, no. _No_ . And if Eliot has to spend hours on tumblr, going through the old tag-- _their_ old tag-- to remind himself of that fact and also just because it’s two-thirty in the morning, and he keeps curling toward the empty pillow next to him out of a particularly masochistic muscle memory and he _needs_ to see those dimples again, well what does it hurt? Other than his own well-being, that is, and since when had _that_ ever fucking mattered?

So. Right. Henry’s question. His present options. 

First, always, is outright falsehood:

_No, Henry, I haven’t given a thought to all those scenes of degenerate-yet-tender fucking I was writing into the small hours during the book tour in a doomed bid to exorcise myself of my useless fucking feelings. I haven’t given a thought to_ him _, either-- the one I was pointedly not writing that not-a-love-story about. Not since I ghosted him with nothing but a scarf as a goodbye-- and that only because I couldn’t trust myself to_ keep _it anymore, now that it smells like generic laundry detergent and peppermint tea and his hair._

Second, naturally, is the truth, but told as if it doesn’t matter:

_Indeed, I have thought about how it ends, Henry; I do little else. But alas, and funny story: all that thinking never gets me anywhere because I get too distracted by the way my stomach hurts, all the time now, from how damn badly I miss the way he held me. And the way he let me hold him, too. Hilarious, yes?_

The third kind of lying, discovered too late and probably better not to have learned about at all (except that he can’t wish that, not really), the kind that had let Eliot _himself_ believe that Quentin’s love isn’t something he needs like water, has been-- inaccessible, of late. It’s not worth couching as an option, here, in Henry’s spartan glass-walled office, with Jane’s accented, effervescent prattle floating in over the transom, and reminders of _Forty Circles_ everywhere.

But then, none of his various methods of misdirection are _really_ worth couching as options, these days, are they? _Christ_ . It’s like all of his energy for untruth is being consumed by the effort of walking around upright under the condemnation of gravity itself for not having had the fucking guts to throw himself across Quentin’s lap, even if Alice was already sitting there, and just _beg_ to stay a moment longer. 

As a result of his generally enervated state, what comes out when he answers Henry, weighing approximately a metric ton per word, is, simply and unimpressively:

“Yeah. I’ve thought about it.”

Henry continues to stare through Eliot, waiting for Eliot to give a little more, which-- _better men than you have tried, Fogg. Worse men, too._ When Eliot pointedly drops his eyes to the polished top of Henry’s desk, Henry lets out a long sigh.

“We can return to book two at a later time,” Henry says, and Eliot can feel, already, the way that that tiny phrase is going to become a problematic codeword in his life, a troubling refrain. _Book two._ Just like Quentin’s _book three_ . Except, of course, that Quentin’s not laboring under his version of the curse anymore, for which Eliot is, truly, grateful. Eliot can’t be anything _but_ grateful, for Quentin well, Quentin succeeding, Quentin thriving. Even if it’s not Eliot who gets to share that joy with him, who gets to huff against Q’s ear that it’s about time and maybe they can _finally_ get that slutty HBO special now, when he really means _congratulations_ and _I’m so fucking proud of you_ and _I_ \--

“There are two other matters to discuss at present,” Henry continues over Eliot’s runaway thoughts, and not a moment too soon. “ _First_ , is this.”

He slides an envelope across the desk with perfect timing, the smooth motherfucker. It’s a thick, creamy envelope-- not white, not ivory, but something close to clean linen, which, in Eliot’s view, is the classiest shade of the white family. There’s nothing written on the front.

“And _this_ would be . . . ?” he prompts, reaching out for the envelope delicately, on the off-chance that it’s hiding teeth. 

“It’s a _letter_ , Mr. Waugh. Don’t tell me that you and your millennial cohorts no longer recognize them.”

Eliot doesn’t bother rolling his eyes, just looks up from turning the envelope over in his hands long enough to glare at Henry. “I _meant_ who is it from?”

Henry’s smile goes knowing. “An old friend of Brakebills Press. I think perhaps you know of her. Ms. Janet Pluchinsky.”

Eliot drops the letter. It lands gracefully in his lap-- no thanks to his own fumbling. “Janet--”

“Pluchinsky. Editor emeritus of Hipbone Magazine; contributor-even-more-emeritus to the Brakebills Heat line. Yes,” Henry affirms. “Apparently you mentioned a book she wrote at one of your readings. She found out about it.”

Eliot _did_ mention her book, _the_ book-- in Pittsburgh. It had been two days after he’d told Quentin about _A King, Not a Princess_ , and what it had meant to him as a teen, and as with virtually everything that passed between him and Quentin, the conversation had lingered in front of mind for days after. That was probably why he had found himself regaling an enraptured crowd with the story of King Margo screaming at the desert sand, after Quentin’s lovingly detailed description of one Chatwin or another having a touching moment of self-discovery at some kind of healing spring in Fillory. He firmly doubts, however, that _Janet Pluchinsky_ \-- the terror of New York Fashion Week, the Miranda Priestly that Miranda Priestly dreams of being, the person who, if Page Six is to be believed, once told a not-to-be-named, between-divorces real-estate developer that she would put her Jimmy Choos so far up his ass he would taste next season-- had been at that Pittsburgh Popper & Nobel, laughing along, in the buttcrack of January. 

“How does she _know_ about that?” Eliot finds himself asking, shaking his head.

“How does she do any of the things she does?” Henry returns. “She’s a terrifying old harridan who chews up and spits out men, women, and the occasional alpaca.”  
  
Eliot furrows his brow. “Alpaca?”

“Best not to ask,” Henry says, and-- sure, okay, Eliot’s willing to go with that. “The bottom line is she _did_ find out, and according to Bigby”-- his voice simmers a little on the name again, and one day Eliot really will get to the bottom of _that_ juicy little mystery-- “she likes the cut of your jib and would like to meet you. The details are in the letter,” Henry finishes, with a smirking gesture to the envelope that’s still in Eliot’s lap. 

_Of course it’s still in my lap_ , Eliot wants to say. _Janet Pluchinsky_ \-- the woman who gave life to his fictional idol, who taught him how to make himself into the kind of character who lives to the end of the story-- wants to meet _him_. His hands may never work again.

“For what it’s worth,” Henry says, after Eliot sits stunned for another moment or three, “I suspect the two of you will get along famously. Perhaps even infamously. I’ve already told Bigby we may come to regret this little introduction.”

Eliot laughs at that, a little bit helplessly, because why not? He and _Janet Pluchinsky_ are destined to be some kind of sexless _Harold and Maude_ pair-up. That seems as probable as anything else that’s happened to Eliot, honestly. As probable as getting out of Indiana and living through his coke habit and writing his way onto the New York Times bestseller list and finding the one little nerd in all this world who makes Eliot want the warm and gentle things he can’t ever have-- and _realize_ that he wants them, for all the good that recognition won’t do him.

The thought of said little nerd makes Eliot’s smile go brighter for a second, then fall away all together. Because amidst the ruckus of elation and disbelief he feels at this preposterous development, the one idea that springs fully formed out of the swirl, heartbreakingly naive in its simple honesty (not unlike the man who inspired it), is _I can’t wait to tell Q_.

The recognition of that desire-- and the knowledge hot on its heels that of course it’s doomed to go unrequited, like so many others-- socks Eliot in the gut, sending his gaze back down to his lap, where the immaculate envelope now looks just the barest touch grayer. 

“It would be beneficial, I think, for you to develop more friendships with writers,” Henry says in the silence that follows, his voice softer now, like he’s sensed the change in Eliot’s mood. When Eliot still doesn’t respond, Henry breathes out an unnecessarily paternal sigh, then, with the air of someone deciding that an onerous thing must be done and it may as well be him to do it, adds, “To be perfectly honest, Mr. Waugh, I think it would be beneficial for you to develop more friendships, period.”

Eliot looks up sharply, with a glare that wants to be dismissive but probably shades closer to betrayed-- because how many times do they have to go over this? Eliot appreciates Henry’s support, of course he does, but he’s not looking for a cheering section. This isn’t _Stand and Deliver_ and he’s not playing the Lou Diamond Phillips to Fogg’s day-drinking Edward James Olmos-- no matter that he really _does_ have the cheekbones for it.

He _wants_ to defend himself against Henry’s accusation, or at least he thinks he _should_ . In reality, though, there’s not much evidence he can offer against the charge of friendlessness, except for the one-eyed yorkie who saved him and some fantastically tenacious kids on the internet and--oh, right, the best friend he’s ever had, who would be well within his rights to never speak to Eliot again after the runner Eliot pulled in Chicago, even if Eliot ever works up the nerve to speak to him first. A month ago Eliot wouldn’t have even had _that_ much evidence to marshal, of course-- would only have had the yorkie to speak of, in fact. But the lack wouldn’t have mattered back then, because he would have simply told Henry without compunction that Eliot doesn’t _need_ anything so banal as a _family_ to become what he’s meant to be. It’s a shame, on a lot of levels, really, that he was so spectacularly wrong about that-- that more and more every day, it feels like he _does_ need a family, and he needs it to be _Quentin_ , and somehow he spent almost thirty years not knowing that and thirty days nearly having that and perhaps another thirty years convincing himself that he can go without it again.

“You said there was a second point of business,” Eliot says in lieu of the defense that’s not coming, while he slides Janet Pluchinsky’s letter-- _carefully_ \-- into his leather bag. He tosses the words off with as much poise as he can muster, which is not as much poise as he would like, candidly, but it’s like he said before-- all of his put-on-a-show energy is already occupied with breathing in normally, like his chest isn’t cracking down the center, a little deeper every minute.

Henry accepts the change of subject and nods, sliding another envelope across the desk, this one standard manila with the Brakebills insignia in the upper corner. “The proof for your updated book jacket,” he says. “I’m due in a meeting with Lipson shortly, so I don’t have time to discuss it now, but take a look and you can email me your approval. Preferably by tonight.”

“Was there-- a problem with the original book jacket?” Eliot asks, eyebrows drawing together. He’d developed a fondness for the garish thing, with its bright plumage and its vulgarity, daring anyone to misunderstand or disapprove of it. The second kind of lie made manifest, giving literal cover to all the ugly truths-- the ugly _Eliot_ \-- within. 

“Just minor updates,” Henry clarifies. “They’ve added a line to the front noting that it’s a New York Times bestseller-- which is quite customary.” He clears his throat-- a noticeably gratuitous tic for a man with a voice like velvet-- and adds, “They’ve also taken the liberty of adding a few new endorsements to the ‘praise for’ section, from two of our top-selling authors.”

“Which ones?” 

“Poppy Kline, for one. They used her blurb from the promotional posters,” Henry answers, making Eliot stiffen as he puts the proofs in his bag along with Janet Pluchinsky’s invitation. He doesn’t know Poppy Kline personally, couldn’t even pick her out of a lineup, really, but he’d spent a night disabusing Quentin of the _offensively_ misguided notion that Q gives boring rimjobs thanks to one of her performance notes, so he’s not exactly a fan-- no matter how much pleasure he’d personally gotten from the disabusing. 

“Well, I suppose dicks and dragons are pretty much her wheelhouse,” Eliot says crisply. “Who else?”

“Your friend Mr. Coldwater.” 

Eliot doesn’t let himself stiffen at _that_ name. Instead, he shifts his bag on his shoulder as he says, automatically, “Well, they’ll have to reattribute that one.”

At Henry’s raised eyebrow, he clarifies, “Q doesn’t do endorsements.”

The two of them had been sitting in the front seat of the rental car-- _Sexy Devil_ , their first and Eliot’s favorite-- with the heat blasting, eating mind-bogglingly bad Italian food outside of Hartford when Quentin had told him about that personal policy. Q’s smile had been contagious as he related his one unqualified victory in he and Jane’s ongoing war over his marketing plan. Eliot, predictably, had called him a snob, but he’d secretly been charmed-- partially by Q’s notion of artistic integrity, but also by the way Q had cut a tiny chunk out of his meatball with the plastic cutlery that had been unceremoniously thrown into their takeaway bag when the restaurant refused to budge on its no-dogs policy, and offered it to Bambi, who accepted it as her due. 

In the present moment, Henry’s smile isn’t so contagious or charming as Quentin’s, but it is smug, like he just scored points in a game that Eliot doesn’t even know they’re playing. “I’m well aware of Mr. Coldwater’s aversion to endorsements,” Henry says, like he’s pleased with himself. “It seems he’s made an exception in your case. In fact,” he says, folding his hands primly, “he _volunteered_ his review. Unsolicited.” 

Eliot doesn’t know what to do with that information-- not in general, and definitely not here in Henry’s office. Part of him wants to rip open the envelope right now and see what it is that Quentin has to say about his book-- about _him_ . But he doesn’t think he could stand here and act like everything is normal if any of the words match the ones that Quentin had admitted for the first time at that shitty event in Boston, back when Eliot had flayed himself open for Quentin’s benefit. Or, Jesus, if they echo the ones Quentin had babbled quietly one of the _other_ times they’d talked about Eliot’s book, curled under the covers with Q’s fingers in Eliot’s hair, while Eliot fell asleep with his face pressed to Quentin’s soft stomach. Eliot is equally uncertain that he could hold it together if the words that Quentin offers now are less than those were-- if they’re clinical, some perfunctory peace offering that fair-minded Q thinks he _owes_ Eliot, after ruining Eliot with a taste of what only good guys and comely optics professors get to keep. 

“Is that so,” Eliot murmurs, unable, with his dwindling reserve of keeping-up-appearances, to even make it sound like a true question. The end of his rope has been a long time coming and now, at last, Eliot finds his hands are clutching nothing. “Well, I’ll take a look and let you know,” he says quickly, sweeping toward the doorway without a by-your-leave, to make this damned appointment end while he’s still (mostly) presentable. “Must fly now; wouldn’t want to make you late for your meeting.”

He makes it to the doorframe, almost free, when Henry calls out again. Eliot braces a hand on the frosted glass door, to keep himself from stomping his feet in frustration, or worse. Because _damn it_ , if he can’t properly _hide_ the fact that everything inside him is caustic and painful right now, like the shit that dissolved the penny in those videos his high school chem teacher used to show, then the people who get to _watch_ him fall apart should at least have the decency to recognize when he’s trying to make a face-saving exit. 

“One last thing, with regard to _book two_ ,” Henry says, and-- yup, Eliot feels himself wince at the shorthand already. “Perhaps it’s a pipe dream, but as you think through the ending, I do hope you’ll at least consider letting it be a happy one,” Henry says. 

The ‘let it’ makes Eliot want to laugh. Or not laugh.

He spins around before he realizes he’s doing it. “ _Fuck_ you, Henry,” he snaps. “Weren’t you the one who was skeptical of the whole happy-ever-after schtick when I made the mistake of sending those stupid scenes to you in the first place? Now what? You think that the guy who literally shoves people away from him with his _mind_ just-- what? Plays happy-family forever with the nice little not-hobbit and his nice little books waiting for his nice little _hero_ to come along?”

By the time he’s finished, Eliot is sneering so hard his voice is shaking, which doesn’t exactly scream _this means nothing to me_ , but at least it’s one of the less incriminating reasons for his voice to be shaking. He counts it as a victory, even though he _knows_ that that fact itself is a defeat-- his truest defeat. It means that even when everything inside of him is already raw-meat ravaged, he’s _still_ biting and clawing-- every inch the monster-- to try to keep anyone from finding the spots that are already so bruised they’re not even worth defending. 

Henry doesn’t speak until Eliot’s outburst is over. When he does, he’s implacable as ever, giving no hint of perturbation about the steaming mess that’s snarling like a rabid animal in his office door.

“To be clear,” Henry says, “I was never skeptical of a happy ending for Monster Boy. I was skeptical of your commitment to one.”

Eliot presses his eyes closed, just for a moment, but it doesn’t make this conversation any easier, so he opens them again. 

When he does, Henry is watching him with almost unbearable understanding. “You see, Eliot,” he says-- and Eliot’s not sure that Henry’s ever called him that before, in between all the pointedly formal ‘Mr. Waugh’s-- “as a person who’s never had the energy or perhaps the courage to pursue the things I most want in this life, I’d like to see a different path for Monster Boy. _I_ believe that Monster Boy deserves to be happy-- truly happy, even loved, if that’s what he wants. My only hesitation is whether _you_ agree.” 

Eliot just sighs and turns back to the door, feeling the weight of Henry’s question and remembering the weight of Q’s body, pressing desperate but so fucking careful against his back. “It doesn’t matter what I want, Henry,” he says over his shoulder. “It’s a moot point.”

“No, Mr. Waugh,” Henry answers, his cool, disappointed professionalism once again restored. “I don’t believe it ever is.”

Eliot can’t say _anything_ to that, so he walks away-- which is, after all, one of the few things he excels at doing. He makes it to the elevator bay and jabs the down arrow with more force than is strictly necessary, focused on getting the fuck _out_ of here. The elevator dings almost immediately and he’s about to thank God for _one_ thing going right today, when the doors open, and out steps Q.

Logically, some part of his brain realizes, seeing Q should make this moment worse. All the loss, all the ferocity, all the too-honest-by-half shit that he’s epically failing to repress right now are linked, after all, to the man who’s suddenly standing in front of him, with cartoonishly wide eyes. But as Eliot takes in the sight of Quentin for the first time in a week and a half ( _just a week and a half?_ ), sees his dark eyes and his dropped jaw and the nest of staticky flyaways coming out of his little ponytail-- which Eliot knows means he just pulled off that fucking hideous blue beanie while he was in the elevator--all Eliot feels is _quiet_ . Like all the shit inside of him that’s been buzzing and whirring on overtime, playing at being okay, can finally just _stop._

“ _Q_ ,” he breathes out, before any of those burned-out whirring bits can spin back up to interject. 

“Eliot?” Quentin answers, his initial dumbstruck, _wait-what-how_ expression clearing up just enough to give way to a smile that starts in his sweet brown eyes. His mouth, which is still catching flies, doesn’t quite get the message. But that doesn’t matter, because he’s taking a step forward, closer to Eliot, and Eliot is meeting him halfway, and then--

\--and then the rest of Quentin’s surprise finally melts away, and reality interposes, and his slouched little spine straightens-- as much as it ever does, anyhow. He doesn’t step back, but he doesn’t have to. Eliot gets the message clearly enough anyway.

“Uh, hey,” Quentin says, the hands that had been fluttering at his side a moment ago (reaching _forward_ ?) coming up to tangle in the straps of his bulging-full messenger bag. They’re not the angry red they used to turn when he went out in the cold without any gloves, and the sight stokes something warm inside Eliot. Maybe Quentin won’t take everything Eliot _wants_ to give him; maybe he has Alice for that, now. But he’ll apparently take the atrocious mittens Eliot bought him, that shouldn’t look as maddeningly cute on him as they do, and he’ll wear them and let them shelter him-- and that’s the main thing Eliot wants to give him, anyway.

“So, um, fancy seeing you here,” Quentin adds, as Eliot continues to stare in lightly concealed adoration. Q’s bushy little eyebrows go up, self-deprecating, at his own trite line, and it makes Eliot’s face crease into a real smile, almost painful in its intensity after days of carefully not grimacing. Quentin would be well within his rights to tell Eliot to take a fucking hike right now, after Eliot disappeared into the night like a heartbroken asshole in Chicago, without the class to even say _your girl is lovely, Hubble_ or _fuck you for changing my life_. Quentin could choose to be stiff and impersonal right now, too, like any number of the exes Eliot has run into after the fact, who seemed to think that any acknowledgment that they’d had their dicks in each other once would cause Eliot to drop to his knees and beg for another chance. 

But Quentin’s not doing any of that. He’s being _kind_ instead. He’s joking. He’s letting Eliot have this much-- the _liking_ that was always there underneath all the rest of it. And as exhausted and incompetent as Eliot has been of late, keeping up his half of the act is suddenly the easiest thing.

“Mm,” he hums, drawing himself up back to his full height, pulling on the role-- Eliot Waugh, monstrous bitch-- like a cloak. “Yes, I believe Henry was equally shocked that I deigned to interrupt me and Bambi’s regularly scheduled itinerary of online shoe shopping and martinis for a little thing like my actual job.”

There’s a semi-tense moment where they each watch each other recognizing that it’s a bluff-- that Eliot is fresh out of good reasons to day-drink, and that if he started drinking over Quentin, period, he wouldn’t stop until he needed to be drip-dried. But Quentin finds a way to let him off the hook gracefully. He rolls his eyes, taking Eliot’s heart along for the ride, and says, “Martinis. Right. More like online shopping and frappuccinos.”

It’s not even a hardship for Eliot to sigh dramatically. “Yes, yes,” he intones. “The culinary snobbery of a man who all but lives off of leaf-flavored water is duly noted.”

Quentin smiles easily. He reaches forward toward Eliot’s hip, making Eliot’s heart turn over, but he stops short of making contact.

“Oh,” he says, a little frown breaking through his smile. “Sorry, I thought--”

Eliot follows Quentin’s eyeline, and realizes it wasn’t actually Eliot’s hip he was aiming for, but the leather bag in front of it, which is empty today, sans the papers Henry gave him. “Oh,” he echoes. “Yes. Well. Her imperial majesty the Destroyer is reigning supreme over our apartment this afternoon.” 

Quentin smiles even though he’s obviously confused. “Um, hanging out with her werewolf boyfriend?” he asks.

“Oh, please,” Eliot grins, smoothing away the crinkle in his brow that wants to form at Quentin’s puzzled look. “More like werewolf concubine. Bambi can’t be tied down with anything so basic as a steady beau.”

Quentin keeps staring at him with that furrowed face and Eliot worries that it was too soon for Quentin, too-- to joke around about the line between ‘boyfriend’ and ‘warm body on a cold tour.’ But after a moment, Quentin folds his arms across his chest and says, “So, just to be clear-- she _does_ stay home sometimes? And you _still_ made me stand outside in the middle of a snowstorm the first time we met?”

He smiles as he says it, and Eliot returns the grin, because he’s unable to do anything else at the sight of those befucked dimples. But his heart is thumping erratically and he’s thinking, _oh baby boy, do you still not realize? It wasn’t_ Bambi _who was scared to be on her own that day._ But why would Quentin know, when he wasn’t there, watching Eliot Google the big-deal author that Henry was making him go on tour with? Quentin never saw the way that Eliot’s own jaw dropped-- just the way Quentin’s had at their first meeting-- when the images loaded and Eliot saw just how fucking _handsome_ Quentin is. He never saw Eliot practice the way he would say Quentin’s name, and how he would stand, and the cigarette he’d smoke. He doesn’t realize that Eliot lied to him the second they met-- as soon as Eliot smiled like his heart wasn’t racing.

Eliot tells the lie again now arranging his mouth into a careless grin. “Oh, don’t be such a baby,” he says, casual and easy. “It was hardly snowing. Just a little freezing rain.” 

Quentin doesn’t say anything, and he also doesn’t look away. They just stand there in the elevator bay, watching each other breathe, until someone pushes past with an armful of file folders-- which is probably fair, because this is a working office, but it makes Quentin look away, which makes the interruption unforgivable to Eliot. 

“I should, um,” Quentin says, gesturing toward Brakebills’ suite with one hand, while the other rises to push a strand of hair behind his ear, his fingers catching on the tangles that are already tucked back there. Eliot fucking _aches_ to smooth them out. 

“Right,” he says instead. “Of course. I won’t keep you.” 

That’s all together too on-the-nose, but Quentin only nods and shoulders past Eliot, toward the glass office where Jane isn’t even pretending not to watch the two of them, a surprisingly troubled crease in her creamy brow. 

Eliot doesn’t reach for Quentin’s elbow to stop him walking away, because the last time he did that, he kissed Quentin like a promise that he couldn’t keep. That he can _never_ keep. 

“Congrats on book three,” he says quietly, instead, to the gray tile floor. “I’m-- I’m really happy for you, Q.”

It’s the wrong thing to say, apparently, from the way Quentin’s shoulders suddenly pull in tight. But Quentin just mumbles, “Yeah, um. Thanks,” and keeps walking away.

Eliot finally sees, when Quentin turns, the long stripe of fabric trailing out of his overstuffed messenger bag.

It’s a dark purple scarf, its tassels dragging across the floor.

The image sticks in Eliot’s mind all the way across town to the small but up-to-code apartment that was the second life-upgrade he made when his first Brakebills check came in-- right after Bambi’s fuschia coat, the first designer item that he actually bought full-price. He drops his bag by the door and scoops the fuschia coat’s owner into his arms, carrying her to the bedroom, where she has the benevolence to plop down on his chest when he falls back onto the mattress, and only gives him _moderate_ ‘you brought this on yourself’ eyes. Well, _eye_.

“He doesn’t love me.”

He says it both to Bambi and himself, and to the memory of that fucking _scarf_. It’s a nice scarf and Quentin is always chilly; that’s all it means. Just like Eliot has a nice cock and Quentin is always horny. And Eliot has a nice need-to-coddle-Quentin and Quentin is always desperate for tender care. Except--

_She used to say that I only ever wanted people who were a little bit mean to me_ , Quentin had said of Alice, at that gods-forsaken hotel bar.

Well, she must have been mistaken. Or Quentin was-- about what he actually craved. There’s a lot of that going around these days, Eliot thinks, borderline hysterically. There can be nothing special about what Quentin wanted from Eliot, because if there was it would mean believing that there was something special about--

“He _doesn’t_ ,” Eliot repeats. 

Bambi doesn’t respond, but that may be because he’s alternating his hands down her silky spine, one then the other-- her one weakness. Quentin had figured that move out without needing to be told. One night-- it must have been after they got snowed in, but before they traveled west. Syracuse, maybe? Ithaca?-- Eliot had stayed up writing until dawn was nearly breaking, his hand cramping around the cheap hotel pen. Quentin had stayed up, too, lying beside Eliot with Bambi on his stomach, just the way Eliot is holding her now. He hadn’t stopped petting her, even after her she started snuffle-snoring against his comfy old t-shirt. When Eliot had finally shaken out his hand for the last time and dropped his chaotic stack of notebook pages on the nightstand, Quentin had turned his head and smiled at Eliot. He’d looked so tired and so gorgeous that Eliot had paused on his way to flicking off the bedside lamp.

“ _What’re you writing?_ ” Quentin had whispered, slurred but curious. 

And Eliot had leaned down to cup a hand beneath Q’s stubbly chin and kissed his mouth and said, “ _Just a fantasy_.”

Because that’s all this is-- this recurring dream that Q feels the same things for him that he feels for Q. _Fantasy._ And not even a particularly faithful interpretation of the form, at that-- as Q himself could no doubt explain, ad nauseum, with citations. The real world is _fucked_ for freaks like Eliot. And even in fantasy, it’s only the brave and the valiant ones, who muddle through their adversity with an open heart and good cheer, that go on to win their loves. Not the ones that grow claws and hole up in their lairs, bent on eviscerating anyone unfortunate enough to stumble upon their seclusion. Even _Eliot_ couldn’t flout the conventions of the genre flagrantly enough to write a tender ending for _that_ kind of monster. And even if he could, what a shitty fucking ending for the monster’s poor beloved, who deserves-- Jesus, who deserves _everything_. A _hero_ , not a monster. Who deserves whatever his ridiculous heart that’s always beating all over his too-long sleeve desires. Which _can’t_ be Eliot, because there’s no way to say _that_ like it doesn’t matter, and there’s no space in Eliot’s lair for--

An insistent buzzing cuts through Eliot’s tortured metaphor and displeases Bambi, who vacates her perch to go lie on a surface that’s not vibrating. Eliot reaches into his pocket and fishes out his phone. The message is from a number he doesn’t recognize and simply says ‘Check your email.’ Eliot pushes aside the vague suspicion that he’s about to be linked to the video from _The Ring_ or something equally macabre, and opens his inbox. There, at the top, is an unread message from--

Jane. _Quentin_ ’s Jane. 

He pushes himself up to sit on the edge of the bed, his curiosity-- and his anxiety-- well and truly piqued now. His thumb fumbles a little, shaky, as he taps the message once then twice to open it. Which is ridiculous, really. If there were-- if something was the matter, where Quentin was concerned, Jane would have just said that in the text; she wouldn’t have played phone app scavenger hunt. And that’s even assuming that someone would think to alert _Eliot_ if something really were the matter with Quentin, which is a dubious proposition at best-- and not exactly the kind of comforting thought Eliot is looking for right now. _Shit_.

Okay. Finally open. And _look_ \-- there. _See_ ? Nothing to worry about. Eliot skims through the message, getting the basic gist as his adrenaline settles back to baseline-- _partial draft from a fellow Brakebills author_ and _very early stages_ and _in need of your insight in particular_. There’s a postscript that notes sprucely that Quentin’s doing a Q&A-- solo-- at the FIfth Avenue Popper & Noble tonight at 8 o’clock, to celebrate the announcement of book three’s release date. But other than that, the email’s not about Quentin at all.

So Eliot thinks-- _it’s not about Quentin at all_ \-- as he taps the attachment. He continues to think it as he waits for the document to load on his phone, which takes an age because upgrading to the latest _model_ will never be as important to Eliot as upgrading to the latest _season_ . It does load eventually, though. And when it does, the first words Eliot sees, in bold at the top of the page, are “ _Book Four: The Fool’s Story [working title]._ ” 

It takes a few moments for the screen-- and the room-- to stop spinning. Even when they’ve settled, though, Eliot’s eyes feel like they’re flittering over the page, stopping and sticking without much steady momentum. The “very early” partial draft starts in media some kind of res and there’s a lot of background Eliot’s not quite catching, but-- oh, there’s Lady Tree, Q’s beloved Julia, who’s absolutely gonna follow her fictional avatar to high office in a couple months if Reynard Fucking Fox’s abysmal polling numbers have anything to say about it. There’s some kind of commission or quest and Tree’s calling on-- 

_There he is_. The Fool. Eliot’s aching chest goes all soft and swimmy just from the word on the page, the same way his head went quiet when he saw the Fool’s creator at Brakebills today. 

The draft hops and skips all over the place, a lot of times with Quentin’s neurotic little bracketed notations about what’s going to fill the space. Eliot doesn’t see Vix mentioned anywhere, not in any of the scenes that are already written or in Quentin’s notes. Maybe she’s off on some other kind of derring-do, or-- honestly-- a well-earned equatorial vacation, after dealing with whatever overpowered shit she no-doubt wrestles to the ground in book three. 

Eliot scrolls more quickly through an extended discursion on the finer points of draconic dialect-- which he both hopes and fears that Jane will cut-- reading more closely again once Tree is taking the Fool down to the courtyard and kissing his forehead and sending him off.

_“Be well, my little Fool,” the Lady said, straightening his cap. “Your kingdom has great need of you.”_

_The Fool nodded as solemnly as he could, wincing when the movement made his bells jingle._

_But the kind Lady only smiled her thousand mysteries. “_ His _kingdom has great need of you, too,” she said, inclining her head toward_ \--

Eliot sucks in a breath.

_\-- the man, draped in silk, dark and fair, tall and lean, beautiful and_ beautiful _, laying stretched across the Great Stone in the courtyard._

_“Is this the travelling companion you mentioned?” the Fool asked, when he could make his jaw move._

_But the Lady was gone, leaving only the Fool and--_

_“Greetings,” the Fool called out, with a heartiness that was mostly artifice. “You must be the Wandering King that the Lady Tree spoke of. I pledge myself to your service.”_

_The man-- the King-- slithered up from his repose like a ribbon unwound. “No. No, that won’t do at all,” he said, his eyes narrowed. Despite the searching shape, they were the tender new brown of a sapling just beginning to grow strong, the Fool noticed._

_“Only heroes have questing caperers pledged to their service, you see,” the King explained, in a tone that mimicked drawling boredom._

_“Kings as well, surely,” the Fool offered._

_“Yes, well. I’m mostly an ornamental monarch, as it turns out.”_

_The Fool narrowed his own eyes. “If not a hero and not a king, then what are you?”_

_“Probably a villain, as near as I can calculate it,” the King bustled on, reaching for his horse. He stopped with the reigns in his hand, as if considering further. “Perhaps a monster,” he finally concluded._

_“You don’t seem like a monster,” the Fool insisted, without knowing where his certainty came from. “Perhaps you’re something else all together.”_

_The King’s eyes-- they were mesmerizing, truly-- turned down, as if they fainted to believe it. “What else is there, outside of heroes and monsters?”_

_The Fool swallowed his first response. He tilted his head meekly toward the beautiful King with the sharp tongue and kind eyes and said, hesitant, “Perhaps you might let me show you? I know a great many stories, you see. I could share them with you.”_

_Love_ , _too, he thought, unbidden, when the King’s eyes softened further. This time, please, let it be_ love _and stories--_

Eliot doesn’t make it any farther than that, before he’s tearing through the apartment, grabbing for the trench coat that he shucked off in the front room and the ankle boots he toed off between here and there. He catches sight of the time on the microwave clock as he starts digging his Brakebills envelopes and his endless supply of loose pages out of the bag that he left by the door, to make room for Bambi-- because the thought of doing this without his wingwoman is almost as nauseating as the thought of doing at all, which is almost as nauseating as the thought of being a goddamned fucking _coward_ for an hour longer-- and lets out a vicious _“shit_!” 

He redoubles his pace, dropping the manila Brakebills envelope as a result. It falls to the floor, the proofs for the new book jacket fluttering to the ground as it goes. The proof for the front cover lands face down, but the back cover lands face up. Eliot isn’t particularly in a mind for neatening at the moment, but he glances down anyway, only half paying attention, as he coaxes Bambi into the now empty bag. 

And there, in yellow Helvetica, is the unsolicited truth that Eliot has been trying to turn into the kind of lies that he’s comfortable with for the better (worse) part of a fucking month-- even plainer than meddling Jane’s email.

He makes it to Fifth Avenue in record time, even after delays on the L-train have him literally running across the Lower East to Union Square to catch the 4/5/6. It’s a move that the Brakebills Heat imprint-- or the Hallmark Channel, for that matter-- would be proud of, even if it also leaves him doubled over and hacking up a lung when he finally makes the train, which may be why romantic leads don’t usually have two-pack-a-week habits, come to think of it, _Christ_. Once he gets off at Grand Central, he limits himself to a power walk for the few blocks to the bookstore, hugging his bag to his chest as he bustles along to minimize the jostling to poor Bambi, whose glare says that she did _not_ sign up for this lesser-Meg-Ryan-film bullshit and that if the snow that’s been threatening all day actually starts picturesquely falling in the middle of Eliot’s emotional sprinting, she’s outtie. 

And then he’s close enough to see the standing-room-only crowd through the store’s floor-to-ceiling windows. There’s a sticky moment when a dour blond at the door-- _Charlton_ , apparently, and since when does Brakebills hire _bouncers?_ \-- informs him in a petulant monotone that there are no animals allowed in the store. But the day is saved when Fen appears in her branded polo shirt with her hair tied back in six or seven little braids, and offers to babysit Bambi in the employee breakroom once again, like she did on the first night of Quentin and Eliot’s tour. Eliot almost demurs, even though he was threatening to rain hell on poor Charlton only seconds ago if he didn’t let him _through the damn door_ , because the idea of going in without his Bambi-- without his protector, the one that kicked his ass and challenged him to stop lying around in his own piss all day and actually start _writing_ , makes him want to-- oh. Pass out, probably. But then Fen is lifting Bambi out of his arms, and Bambi is wiggling her butt with poorly concealed excitement, the little traitor, before she once again adopts her pose of tolerant indulgence and shoots Eliot a look that just _screams_ ‘ovary up, dickwad’-- which is fairly big talk from someone who’s spayed, but the point is taken.

“Thank you, Fen,” Eliot manages to force out, around the tightness in his throat. “This-- it means a lot to me.”

Fen looks up from planting little smooches on Bambi’s nose long enough for her eyes to go soft. “Eliot, your book changed my whole _life_. It did for all of us baby monsters,” she says, using the name that his-- fans, apparently-- call themselves online. “You deserve good things, too.”

Eliot leans down and places a gentle kiss on her forehead. This brave young woman who probably didn’t ever need _Eliot_ to show her the way. But instead of fighting her on her conviction, he makes himself nod and say, “I hope that’s true.” 

And then he really is through the door. 

The store is so packed that at first Eliot can’t even see to the stage. But then a guy in a fool’s hat-- one of many-- leans over to whisper to his companion in a cape of shimmering green leaves and it opens a line of sight, and it’s trite to say that it’s like the clouds parting on a starless night and the moon breaking through; Eliot would never write that. But that’s what it _is_ like, so fuck it. 

Quentin is hunched behind the podium on the elevated platform, with his hair back in one of those messy half-buns he likes so much, wearing a black button-down that’s maybe the only one of his shirts that Eliot isn’t making plans to set on fire, if Quentin accepts what Eliot is about to offer. If Quentin gives what Eliot is about to _beg_ for. 

Quentin winds his way to the end of an answer, and Eliot can tell by the number of times he’s said, “more, um, lawful neutral, really,” in the last thirty seconds alone that it’s been a rambling one. But he looks comfortable in his digression, like he’s actually having fun up there, in this big room full of people who love him-- some more than others.

“Right, that was, like-- way more detail than you probably needed,” Quentin says, grinning, even as his questioner shakes her head in denial. “Um, do we have any more questions?”

He looks out into the crowd, squinting a little, so fucking cute Eliot could _die_ , and there’s a moment where Eliot thinks to himself that surely this is enough. Quentin is at the top of his professional form, basking in his domain, the beloved bestie of the future Congresswoman from New York. What more could _Eliot_ offer him on top of all that? But-- _no_ . No. Because Eliot said that Quentin deserves _everything_ his heart desires, no matter how incomprehensible those desires may be. And-- in this one thing, if nothing else in his meager existence-- Eliot will _not_ be a liar. 

He’s stepping up through the aisle between rows of folding chairs before he can think better of it. “I have a question,” he says, calling on all of his high-school drama-club projection techniques.

He can tell the moment Quentin really _sees_ him, because Q’s jaw drops again-- just like it always does. Even though, this time, Eliot has no Bambi, no dramatic pose, no rehearsed lines. Even though his hair is windblown and his face is probably red and sweaty and his coat is practically falling off his shoulders. 

He takes another step forward, so that he’s standing in the middle of the room. 

Half way to Q.

“At your reading in Chicago,” he says-- pausing when there’s suddenly someone-- _Todd_ , Jesus-- at his side with a microphone, nodding at the device excitedly. And-- sure. Okay. It might as well happen this way. Q is the one who started this business of highly public confessions, after all. Eliot’s just finally catching up.

“At your reading in Chicago,” he says again, speaking into the mic this time, so that the whole store and all their online mutuals can hear him. “You said-- you mentioned. That part of the reason you were ready to publish book three now is because--”

His throat tightens up, but he pushes through. He _has_ to. “-- is because you fell in love.”

A frisson of interested murmuring goes through the room at Eliot’s words. Not from Quentin, though, who stiffens. 

“I was wondering,” Eliot continues, his heart beating so hard that it makes his voice shake-- noticeably. “If you could-- hm. Elaborate? On that?”

Quentin just looks at him, his dark eyes going hard and angry, for long seconds, while Eliot does everything he can to project _please, baby boy, just let me fix it_ through his own beseeching gaze. 

“Well, that’s-- kind of a sore subject, actually,” Quentin finally says, crossing his arms in front of him. He doesn’t look away, though-- and Eliot will take that victory. “After I said-- _that_ , in Chicago,” Quentin continues, his voice dull and defensive, “the person I was talking about pretty much just-- ran away. Like, as fast as he could. So, you know--”

“Yeah, okay, well, you see, the thing he is, he’s an idiot,” Eliot interrupts in a rush-- which is probably poor apology-tour etiquette, but he can’t bear the self-doubt in Quentin’s voice. “He didn’t-- Q, he didn’t _know_.”

“Really? ‘Cause I feel like I made it pretty clear.” Q, Eliot’s stubborn little shit, doesn’t give an inch.

Eliot licks his lips and huffs out a sigh. He needs to make himself clear, but he’s also mindful of the _sea_ of camera phones that are out right now, and doesn’t want to drag anyone unconsenting into this drama, so he says, with as much meaning as he can, “I know you tried to. But-- this person. He always-- the whole time, he thought that-- that the _Fool_ was going to end up with _Vix_ \--”

The crowd grumbles, a few people even gasp, and Eliot rolls his eyes. “Okay, relax-- he was clearly wrong about that. That’s my whole fucking point.” 

“Why would you _think_ that?” 

Quentin breaks them out of the third-person conceit, which is kind of a relief, actually. Eliot gives him a hard look of his own, and Quentin has the decency to look a little sheepish, despite his righteous anger. “Okay, I mean. I get _why_ , but.” 

He stops and those thick brows furrow, pummeling Eliot’s heart. “I know I-- I thought that I wanted-- someone else. For a long time. For too long, probably. But then, after we-- El, wasn’t it _obvious_?” he asks, sounding utterly at sea. “That I . . .”

_Love you_ , he means. _Wasn’t it obvious that I loved her once, but now I love you_?

The knowledge yanks hard at Eliot’s heart, just like the Fool’s Story that Jane probably wasn’t supposed to share with him. Just like the blurb on the back of Monster Boy’s new book jacket. 

“It _was_ obvious,” Eliot says, soothing. “I mean-- it _should_ have been.”

It _should_ have. Because Quentin-- brave, foolish Quentin was _so_ honest, this whole time. Those yellow Helvetica letters that are carved into Eliot’s heart now-- “ _QUENTIN M. COLDWATER says, ‘I FELL IN LOVE WITH MONSTER BOY’”_ \-- aren’t any more obvious, really, than the way that Quentin stripped himself bare for Eliot every day of their tour, choosing again and again to invest his kindness in a monster. It’s just that--

“Then what--?” Quentin starts to ask, but Eliot cuts in again.

“Q, I’ve never-- expected to get a happy ending. I mean-- Jesus, I didn’t even think I _wanted_ one.”

The crowd makes an actual _aww_ -ing sound at that-- because, yes, they’re _still_ doing this in front of a fire-marshal-capacity crowd, apparently-- and Eliot grimaces. “Stop it. No. I’m not saying-- Look, I’m not signing up for any bury-your-gays bullshit, believe me. But I thought I’d just get to-- survive. Thrive, even. Vanquish my enemies and sip wine from their skulls, you know?”

“Feed your dad to cannibals?” Quentin asks, with a sardonic lift of his eyebrow, and Eliot smiles-- because that really was a deeply fucking cathartic chapter to write, and Quentin knows it. Because they’ve _talked_ about it. Because Eliot has told him things he can’t tell anyone. 

“Exactly,” he says, returning Quentin’s slight smile. “I thought that would be-- enough. That it _had_ to be. Because the idea of--” 

The words catch somewhere in his throat again. His squeezes his eyes shut tight, just for a moment. When he opens them, Q is still there, still watching him, and that’s enough to make the words spill out in a rush.

“Q, I’ve spent my whole life pretending not to want the things I _actually_ want because I wouldn’t know how to act like it didn’t hurt me when I couldn’t have them.” 

The words land with a nearly audible _splat_ between them. Eliot watches as Quentin tries to puzzle through them, turning them this way and that in his busy-bee mind, until he reaches a conclusion that makes him pull nervously at the cuff of his sleeve.

“And-- _do_ you?” Quentin finally asks, after a moment, sounding-- so fucking nervous. “Want any particular things, I mean?”

Eliot just stares at him, dumbfounded by Quentin’s insecurity. Until--

“ _Oh shit,_ ” he breathes into the microphone. 

On the stage, Quentin’s eyebrows go up, even though his worried little frown is unfurling just a little. “That’s not actually-- super responsive,” he says, still fidgeting.

“ _Q_ ,” Eliot answers-- which is _still_ not responsive, but-- he’s getting there. It’s just that he feels like he’s bubbling over right now, and he needs a moment to sort through it all. There’s-- so much that he-- maybe not _wants_ but _has--_ to say, even though there is no chance in hell-- _none_ \-- that it will come out sounding like it doesn’t matter. Even though there’s no chance it will come out sounding like it’s anything but the _only_ thing that really matters. 

He has to say, _I want you to let me make dirty jokes to piss you off when you’re flipping your shit on airplanes_ , and _I want you to let Bambi con you into carrying her around like a baby_ , and _I want you to read my drafts_ , and _I want to read yours_ , and _I want to make love to you on sheets that belong to us_ , and _I want you to be so sweet to me every day that I have to start drinking black coffee or that shitty dishwater you like just to make it all balance._

But there’s a shorthand for all of that. So he meets Quentin eyes, with his heart in his throat and not trying to hide it-- _shit_ , with his heart in his throat and trying to _show_ it-- and says, as clear as he knows how, “I _love_ you.” 

There’s a collective squeal from the crowd, even though it can’t be that much of a surprise, at this point. Except that maybe it is, because up on the stage, Quentin’s sucking in a breath, and biting on his lips-- which, which is supposed to be Eliot’s job now, actually, thanks so much.

“Fuck, I should have led with that, shouldn’t I?” Eliot asks.

Quentin rolls his eyes, even though there’s a suspicious wetness in them. “You think?” he huffs. 

And then Eliot can’t hold in the laugh that wants to break free anymore, so he doesn’t-- and he lets the tears that are building behind his eyes go, too, and he stands there, laughing and smiling and crying a little, until Quentin rolls his eyes again, and says, “ _Jesus Christ_ , will you just _get up here_ , already?”

Eliot doesn’t know how he makes it to the front of the room and up onto the stage. He doesn’t know what happens to the microphone he was holding, either-- although he suspects that whatever he did with it must be causing the static roar that he dimly registers filling up the room before the audio abruptly cuts. He just knows that Q is in his arms again, squeezing Eliot as tight as Eliot is squeezing him.

“I thought-- when you said we weren’t overthinking,” Quentin murmurs nervously into the notch below Eliot’s adam’s apple. “I figured--”

“I was afraid to make _you_ think too much,” Eliot whispers back against Quentin’s hair, the guilt making his chest throb again. “I didn’t think you’d-- draw favorable conclusions.”

To prove it, he maneuvers Quentin’s hand inside the opening of his battered trench coat, to the pocket of his vest, so that Quentin can feel the the outline of the playing card that’s always tucked right there, against Eliot’s heartbeat. 

Q pulls back and looks at the card-- the little joker with his fool’s hat, Eliot’s card, that Quentin made appear for him-- in shock. Eliot reaches forward and tucks a strand of Quentin’s hair behind his ear. 

“I told you he was mine. I just-- didn’t think I’d actually get to keep him.” 

“Well, you _do_ ,” Quentin answers, dogged as ever, making Eliot bark out another laugh, because he actually can’t believe his luck. Q fists his hands in Eliot’s lapels, pulling him closer, as if for a kiss-- but he stops, his nervous hands fiddling with Eliot’s buttons. “ ‘Cause-- ‘cause I love you, too, you know.”

I do _now_ , Eliot thinks, while his heart turns flips inside him. Quentin hauls him in again, but Eliot beats him to it, catching Quentin’s face with both hands, and pressing their mouths together over and over.

When the videos go up later, on tumblr (and on twitter) (and on YouTube), Eliot will see that it was, aesthetically, an inadvertently beautifully staged kiss. Quentin on his tiptoes, and Eliot leaning down to reach him. The evocative dishabille of Eliot’s winter coat and messy hair, framed against the snowy streets visible outside the store’s tall windows. 

In the moment, however, the only thing he really registers is the lingering taste of saltwater on Quentin’s lips, and the moment he finally kisses it all gone, replaced with Eliot’s tongue and teeth and love.

When they break apart, Eliot sighs and runs his hands through Quentin’s hair, tucking all the scattered pieces back as neatly as he can. 

“Q. I’m not-- the hero that you were always waiting to come and save you,” he can’t stop himself from saying, quietly in the space between them. Because he’s not running anymore, but that doesn’t mean Quentin shouldn’t get the chance to, before Eliot sinks his claws in for good and all and Quentin is trapped in his lair forever.

But Quentin only squares his shoulders. “And I’m not the hero you were expecting to come and slay _you_ ,” he says, firm and fearless, making Eliot’s mouth wobble. Then he shrugs, belligerent and just so damned adorable. “Guess we’ll just have to write a different story.”

Like it’s just that easy. And maybe it can be. 

“Well,” Eliot allows once the urge to cry has passed, bringing his arms up to rest on Quentin’s shoulders, “luckily, you _are_ pretty good at the whole author thing.”

“ _We_ are pretty good at it,” Quentin corrects, pulling at Eliot’s sides to draw him closer.

Eliot lets the correction stand with a happy hum. “ _Although_ ,” he can’t resist adding, as he nuzzles his rough jaw against the soft shell of Quentin’s ear, “it would hardly be in keeping with the traditional conventions of the fantasy genre--”

He has to stop when Quentin wriggles away and groans, sliding his hands inside the back of Eliot’s coat. 

“ _Fuck_ the conventions of the genre,” Quentin mutters, as he begins an assault on the skin at Eliot’s collar.

Eliot opens his mouth to tease his little purist for that remark, but Quentin’s own mouth is suddenly there against his, whispering the words Eliot needs more-- the words he needs _most_.

“Fuck fantasy,” he says, a kiss all its own. “This is _real_.” 

  
  
  


*****

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so very much, from the bottom of my heart, for reading this love story. As the new year and a new season both start, I may not be much around these parts anymore, but I have to tell you that it has been an unbridled joy to share these stories about these fantastic characters with you, and to read your stories in turn. All my best in the new year!


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